Runaway Vines by Lisa Burkhardt Worley

             Do any of you remember the game “Tip It?” While I was putting together a message about God’s prescription for meltdowns, I thought this game was a perfect way to illustrate how easy it is to have a meltdown.

            What causes meltdowns?  It is my theory that we lose our sanity when we are at our limit and one trial or hardship comes along and throws us off balance.  In the game, “Tip It,” the object is to keep loading up rings without toppling the tower over.  It remains balanced when all the rings are evenly placed, but one extra ring can bring the whole tower down.

            That’s the way our lives are. We think we can handle it all and we load up our activities in every area of our lives. We are a fine tuned machine until one unexpected problem comes along and tips us over.

            There was a time in my life where I was working full-time, taking care of my two kids during the week while my husband was working in another city, handling ministry responsibilities and attending seminary part-time. I thought I had everything in balance. but I did not realize I was at my limit.  When my first round of finals at school came along, one morning my heart began to race out of control. I thought I was having a heart attack. After a trip to the emergency room, the diagnosis was I was having a panic attack. TIP IT!  When it happened again during mid-terms of the following semester, I realized I needed to cut something back in my life so I’d have margin the next time testing came around. In my case, I left full-time employment.  I never had another panic attack again.

            In John 15:5, Jesus says,  I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. Before I began seminary the Lord clearly told me I needed to quit my full-time job. It seemed like a far-fetched request at the time, so I did not listen.  God knew that adding graduate school to an already busy schedule would tip me over, but I chose not to abide and became a runaway vine. When I have examined vines, it seems the longer they get, the weaker they are.  The heartiest vines are the ones closest to the ground where they originated.  That’s why plants look so much healthier when you trim their vines.

            Take a look at your life.  Are you abiding in Jesus or are your piling up so many activities that you will tip over if anything unexpected comes along? Are you a runaway vine that needs to prune back your schedule so you won’t have a meltdown in the future?

            I have had to learn that when I feel God calling me to something new, that probably means I need to let something else go.  When I am abiding in Jesus, he will let me know what that something is. I recently had to relinquish control of a ministry I co-founded over six years ago.  That was difficult to do but sometimes pruning is painful!  

        If you don’t know if you are at your limit, play the “what if” game.  What if something unexpected happened right now, how would you handle it?  Is your schedule so jam packed that it would topple you over? If so, pray about how the Lord wants you to scale back, then abide.