Kill the Vines

There are no victories at discount prices.—Dwight Eisenhower

I once read an author’s account of a day in the park: Walking through a park, I passed a massive oak tree. A vine had grown up along its trunk. The vine started small—nothing to bother about. But over the years the vine had gotten longer and longer. By the time I passed, the entire lower half of the tree was covered by the vine's creepers. The mass of tiny feelers was so thick that the tree looked as though it had innumerable birds' nests in it.

Now the tree was in danger. This huge, solid oak was quite literally being taken over; the life was being squeezed from it. But the gardeners in that park had seen the danger. They had taken a saw and severed the trunk of the vine—one neat cut across the middle. The tangled mass of the vine's branches still clung to the oak, but the vine was now dead. The vine’s death would gradually become plain as weeks passed and the creepers began to die and fall away from the tree.

Vines are subtle weeds that can sneak around a tree and in no time, squeeze the tree to death. Even so, sin can creep into our lives and squeeze God out. Many of the “vines” in today’s world are disguised by the label of new philosophies or ideas, but their main goal is to exclude God from society.

Source: Daily in the Word, June 1, 2008