Dear friend,

According to Jesus, you are God’s planted vineyard, fully equipped with all you need to produce a bounteous crop of grapes: A hedge marking your boundaries and protecting you from critters and thieves, a dug pit to make space for processing the produce of the vine, a tower granting oversight of the vineyard and a residence. God has provided you all you need to live a good and productive life. Be a good, respectful tenant.

What is the hedge God has built around you? God’s word is your protection, it’s truth holds you safe from predators. Connecting with God’s presence through prayer strengthens the wall that surrounds you. When you thoughtlessly forget God, when you willfully disobey God’s Spirit, the hedge is broken and you are vulnerable to forces that intend your harm. Take a word from God’s heart and carry it with you through the day. It will be your hedge and your returning point.

How do you make space to process God’s activity in your life? Practice what you’ve been taught. Do the good works God’s given you to do. Share God’s love. Remain constant. Transformation from grapes to wine happens in the small details done faithfully.

God has built a tower in your soul, a place where you can retreat and gain perspective. With God, in this place of residence, you more clearly see the big picture. You find rest from the urgency of life’s details and remember you are built for eternity. Today will pass and so will its deadlines. What are you doing that will last forever? How can you transform what you’re doing into eternal values? This is the perspective the tower gives. All is redeemable for eternity. Working with spiritual directees, sure. But feeding the dogs?

Lord grant us eyes that see eternity in the dog chow.

With you on the journey,

Debby