Upward and Outward

Leaves are unfolding.

New growth is reaching.

Our Creator is beholding,

His lessons are teaching

us how to trust Him through every storm

and allow luscious fruit to grow.

Jesus, the vine, will transform 

us, the branches, will show

 fruit born from living with the Gardener,

who roots us and grounds us in love.

The Vinedresser is also our pardoner,

pruner and friend, we sit with above!

  © 2014 Marie Nease 

John 15 ~ Galatians 5:22-23 - Isaiah 55:7 ~ Micah 7:18

Adversity is not simply a tool. It is God's most effective tool for the advancement of our spiritual lives. The circumstances and events that we see as setbacks are oftentimes the very things that launch us into periods of intense spiritual growth. Once we begin to understand this, and accept it as a spiritual fact of life, 

 adversity becomes easier to bear.

 ~ Charles Stanley

   

 
Becoming like Christ is a long, slow process of growth. 

~ Rick Warren

 

 If a man does not exercise his arm he develops no biceps muscle; and if a man does not exercise his soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no vigour of moral fibre, nor beauty of Spiritual growth. 

~ Henry Drummond, The Greatest Thing in the World

Men may not know how fruits grow, but they do know that they cannot grow in five minutes. Some lives have not even a stalk on which fruits could hang, even if they did grow in five minutes. Some have never planted one sound seed of Joy in all their lives; and others who may have planted a germ or two have lived so little in sunshine that they never could come to maturity. 

~ Henry Drummond, Pax Vobiscum