Do You Have the Support You Need to Grow?

I love tomatoes, but I don’t much like tomatoes from the grocery store. I grew up in South Alabama on red and juicy “Slocomb tomatoes.” You won’t find those at Kroger. Because of this glaring omission, my son grows our own tomatoes every summer in our small Kentucky vegetable garden. McCall tomatoes aren’t quite Slocomb tomatoes, but they sure beat the ones from Kroger.

Every tomato grower knows that tomato vines require support. As the plant grows taller and the fruit gets heavier, some structure is required to keep the tomato vines upright. Without the support of a tomato cage or something similar, the fruit will rot in the soil. To maximize fruit, the wise gardener ensures the vine has the support it needs to thrive.

The Bible relies heavily on agricultural metaphors to describe the Christian life, suggesting that we can learn a lot about spiritual growth by studying plants. Several parallels are obvious right off the bat. In farming, a successful crop depends both on hard work and factors outside the farmer’s control. The farmer may do everything right but still fail due to environmental factors or pests. Conversely, he may fail due to his own negligence. Similarly, spiritual fruit does not result solely from human effort. Human effort is certainly required, but genuine spiritual fruit derives from God’s sovereign Spirit working God’s perfect will in our lives. We are both wholly responsible for our growth and totally dependent upon God.

A few years ago, Colin Marshall and Tony Payne published a book for ministry leaders called The Trellis and the Vine. The book used the trellis and the vine as a parable for Christian ministry. The trellis represents the support component of Christian ministry—things like programs, properties and building, and finances and budgets—all necessary mechanisms. Vine work denotes the ministry of the word of God—preaching, teaching, counseling, and discipling to present every Christian mature in Christ. The authors argued that too often church leaders overfocus on trellis work and neglect vine work. While trellis work is certainly necessary, they argued, the advance of Christ’s kingdom requires vine work. You can construct the most elaborate trellis in history, but it’s useless if no vine grows on it.

I’ve often borrowed a slightly adapted version of their metaphor in counseling and have found it helpful when thinking about my own life. I’m convinced that individual Christians need both trellis and vine work as well. We need to construct structures in our lives that maximize the potential for spiritual fruit. We need to implement habits and practices in our lives that maximize the potential for love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control to grow. We need to periodically evaluate our lives to ensure that we have constructed sufficient support to bear the weight of the impact of God’s word.

Let me provide an example from a recent conversation. I was lately talking to a young Christian husband who had made some mistakes and was trying to regain the trust of his wife. As the conversation went on, it became apparent that the marriage problems spilled over from deeper problems in how this young man viewed and related to Christ. The transformative process, in other words, was going to require work on two simultaneous fronts: his relationship with God through Christ and his relationship with his wife.

It’s one thing to realize you need to strengthen a relationship; its more challenging to know where to begin. Here’s where the trellis and the vine metaphor helps. In this case, the fruit we’re seeking is for this man to have stronger relationships with both God and his wife. How does he do that? Where does he start?

Let’s first evaluate the structure of his life in relation to God. Does he have a daily time he’s set aside to pray and commune with God through his word? Does he have strong Christian friends who can hold him accountable? Is he regularly involved in worship with Christ’s church? These are all structural questions. None of these habits will fix his relationship with God. However, all of them have the potential to support the vine’s growth.

We can ask similar questions about his relationship with his wife. Does he set aside time each week to talk and pray with his wife? Do they go on regular dates? Do they spend time together regularly without kids to prioritize the primacy of their relationship? Again, none of these habits ensure relational growth, but it would be hard to imagine progress without structural support.

I’ve discovered lately that I need to periodically reevaluate my own structure. Life changes constantly. Schedules change. Responsibilities change. Things that worked before will eventually quit working. As my situation changes, I need to ensure that the trellis I’ve constructed in the past still supports the fruit I’m asking the Holy Spirit to produce in my life. Do I need a new daily prayer time? Considering my current spiritual struggles, should I implement a different approach to God’s word? Is my family spending quality time together during baseball season? How can I maximize my summer? If you want to see spiritual fruit, make sure your life has the structure it needs for the current season.

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