I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. John 15:1 NIV

When I opened my landscaping and tree care business in 1987, I came in with more than a dozen years of experience, a professional license and plenty of specialized training. My plan was to use my expertise to guide and educate customers in the “right way” to maintain their ornamental gardens and trees. After butting heads with my “uneducated customers” for a year, I discovered that my plan would definitely never work! I then spent the next thirty years learning that my real job was to listen to those customers and meet their needs. Once I had that figured out, doing my work became a lot more fun and people usually loved the results!

Sadly, when some of us first become Christians, we start out with that same mindset. Because we have been to Catechism class, or spent years in Sunday School, we are sure that we know how to be good Christians. But then life happens, and we find out that our way of doing the Christian life definitely doesn’t work! What we all need to learn is summed up in a scene that happened years ago at the end of one workday. My customer had come out to say hello and noticed a bumper sticker on my truck that said, “We Have a Friend in Jesus”. Pointing to it, he asked humorously, “Is that your partner?” I just shook my head and laughed and answered, “Oh no! He’s the boss!” Yes, Jesus is both the boss, and our Master Gardener, and doing life our way is not an option. But when we get our plans lined up with His design, then He has promised that our lives will begin to yield beautiful fruit!