Psalm 80

Return, we beseech You, O God of hosts; Look down from heaven and see, And visit this vine And the vineyard which Your right hand has planted, And the branch that You made strong for Yourself.
(Psalms 80:14-15)

Here we have another metaphor for our relationship with God. Here we see that we are like a vineyard, and the Lord is like the vinedresser. It might be easier to think of it as a garden and a gardener. We are like little plants that make up a garden, plants that are designed to grow healthy and bear FRUIT. Plants need certain things to grow: good soil, sunlight, plenty of water. The vinedresser or gardener helps to tend to us, to make sure that we are growing properly, producing the fruit of the best quality. He does this by lifting up our branches, moving and repositioning things, binding things up, cutting unnecessary things off, etc…

The Lord does all those things in our life. He cuts and trims, He repositions things, He makes sure that we are positioned in such a way that we can GROW. As the Lord does His part, we have a part to play too. He has provided the LIGHT and WATER that we need, but it is our choice whether or not we will walk and abide in those things. The Light of God is HIS PRESENCE. We are told that we have FELLOWSHIP with Him if we WALK IN THE LIGHT AS HE IS IN THE LIGHT. This basically means that we don’t have any hidden areas of darkness, but truly allow His light to expose all that we are. His Word is compared to water many times throughout the scriptures. We need to be SOAKING in God’s word… it isn’t enough to just have an occasional sip… we need it to soak us, to cover us… we need to be saturated with it.

So, are you a plant that is growing, or are you not submitting to the care of your gardener?