Day 6: “You Are My Favorite Branch”

Lord, I am reacting to that last statement You made. You said, that part of the lie Eve believed was, “You’re not enough just the way you are.”

I am troubled by that because  the opposite statement, “You ARE enough just the way you are,” sounds like it would be the moral of a Disney film–and if I’d watched a movie with that moral in childhood, my parents would have paused the film to point out to us that it was wrong, that none of us are enough by yourselves just the way we are, that we need Jesus.

Ah, darling, you DEFINITELY need Jesus! First of all, Eve stood before Me just exactly as I’d created her, unfallen, the result of My Great Work of Creation. You stand before me as Created and Fallen, in desperate need of My Second Great Work of Redemption. In that sense you are not OK just as you are–you need to be saved! Redeemed. Restored. Remade. Lots and lots of ‘re.’ And all My ‘re’ is yours.

But secondly dear, being enough ‘by yourself’ and being enough ‘just the way you are’ is not the same thing. Those aren’t synonyms, by any stretch of the imagination. Adam and Eve weren’t enough ‘by themselves’ either. They were created to partner with My Spirit, just like you are. That’s why I was SO excited to give the Holy Spirit back to people again! That is like just the most exciting thing in the world to Me! Which is why Satan is so desperate to get everybody to believe it’s bad and scary to be all filled up with the Holy Spirit and letting Him affect you in every possible way. It isn’t. It just makes you like Jesus, whether that looks like walking on water or loving and forgiving your enemies. But anyway, I digress–

What I am saying is, it is still absolutely true that without Me you can do nothing and you must abide in the Vine, you must remain in Me to bear fruit. That is what it means that you are not enough ‘by yourself.’ But it also means that the shape of the actual branch that you are is a good shape, a godly shape, and I like your personality and upbringing and gifting and body and the story I’m writing in your life, and I want you to accept it too.

I want the branch to abide in the Vine, and not compare herself to other branches and try to be longer or shorter or fatter or thinner or curve differently! All of that is just a distraction. All of that is irrelevant, for all her fruitfulness is from abiding in the Vine or not, not from being a different shape of branch. That is what it means that you ARE enough ‘just the way you are.’ You are enough to abide in Jesus and rely on Jesus, just the way you are. And so you are enough. A little scraggly branch that abides in the Vine will bear fruit, and a big beautiful branch that doesn’t remain in the Vine will die and be burned up with fire. Got it?

You are My favorite branch. You are strong enough to hang a swing on. You grow Just Right. I don’t want you to change a single thing about yourself, just abide in the Vine and grow. Grow up just the way you are.