Alive and Thriving

Meditation Thoughts: “ I am the vine; you are the branches.” (John 15:5) “ It is possible to give away and become richer.” (Proverbs 11:24)

It is possible to give away and become richer because of the interconnection of vine and branches – nourishment taken from one flows into the other – so that, although the nourishment of one kind flows out, it is replaced by nourishment of another kind flowing in. The beauty of the flowing, rather than each being self-contained, is that what flows out is an enrichment by the entity of what flowed in, and then if flows out as an enrichment to the receiver. In the meantime, the “outflow” is constantly being replenished by an “inflow” from the connecting part.

As long as there is an interchange, each is nourished and thrives. But when one part starts to receive only, and stops the outflow, the other part dies – and when it dies, its outflow stops, and this kills the part that originally stopped the outflow. One cannot live without the other. We need to have that inter-dependency to keep the vine and branches alive and thriving. We cannot just take and not give; God’s creation was not structured in that manner. The more we understand that as we give, what we give is transformed into something even richer, and then as another gives, we receive the enriched gift back in the form which we need at that time, the more in harmony with our intended nature we will become.

We send out the gift of our raw material, and it is just what someone else, who is serving as a manufacturer at the moment, needs – he produces a finished product, which he then returns to us. Sometimes – maybe most times – there is a complicated exchange of raw materials and manufactured products – but the principle remains the same. Only by being willing to give away our raw material can it be changed, and added to by others, to be returned to us as a more desired form than when we let it go. The more we are willing to let go of our “better” raw materials, the more we will receive “better” finished products.

All through the Bible it is made clear that hoarding is a short-sighted self-defeating attribute. Though it might appear by physical laws that to hoard is the way to have riches, and this is true as far as it goes – the way to have more riches of the kind that will bring peace and joy is to recognize that there are spiritual laws in operation also. As these are perceived and acted upon, the riches that satisfy will then start to be piled up in the storehouse. There is no fear that they will be stolen, as there is with hoarded riches, for the riches flowing in from the observance of the spiritual laws cannot be stolen. Would-be thieves are not even aware that some of these riches exist, and even when they know of their existence, they find that if they try to steal them they disintegrate – for they cannot handle them properly, being unaware of the spiritual laws which are needed to handle these riches. As they try to grasp them with the crushing grasp of greed, the riches crumble.