Today, the Sunday before this post went up, provided some great encouragement and a lesson. The message at church convicted me to the core of my soul, then I had a great bacon cheeseburger at a local golf course. Then Sheila and I stopped off at our winery (well, we’re members, not owners 😉), and something struck me. Look at the pic above. Just in front of us were a number of bushes. One small one had died, another at its base had a dandelion at least 10” wide, and the bush right in front of us had devil grass choking it out.
With my sometimes critical spirit, I pointed out to Sheila we were at a place that specializes in growing plants—specifically, grapevines—with a lot of neglected plants—specifically landscape plants. She mentioned that Cougar focuses on growing great grapes and making great wines, not on growing decorative plants. And I learned about the importance of focus.
Confronted with a choice between great wine, which Cougar Winery has, with mediocre decorative plants or with mediocre wine but great landscape plants, I choose greatness in wine. That’s the focus of Cougar Winery. If you’re in the area and enjoy wine, I recommend it.
Now, let’s apply this to following Jesus. What is our focus, our main thing? Jesus said it was to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbor in the same way we love ourselves. That is our “wine,” to follow the winemaker himself and to love people. What is our “landscape”? Anything else.
That doesn’t mean we ignore the landscape. And often landscape and wine interplay. But we should NEVER allow attention paid to landscape to keep us from making great wine.
Would weeding the landscape plants make better wine? Not likely. With the limited resources that most of us have, we can’t do it all. So may we focus our energy on our prime purpose: loving the winemaker and his people. Yes, we work to pay our bills. But we do so in a way that honors God. Yes, we have fun and enjoy life. But we do so in a way that honors God. Yes, we connect with people and get involved with them. But we do so in a way that honors God.
What does it profit a man, to have a winery with beautiful landscape plants and to serve bad wine? I heard something like that before. Somewhere.
Kick Starting the Application
Look at your life: how are you at distinguishing between wine and landscape? What do you do best? What area do you most need to grow? In this arena, what one thing can you do this week to bring better honor to God?