![\"Worker](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/731\/2016\/11\/Worker-in-Vineyard-300x158.jpg\")
As I gaze deeply into this parable I see a few things that remind me of my life here on earth.\u00a0 In the first place, I find that I am in a similar situation to that of the vinedressers, who are Israel.\u00a0 The earth is the Lord\u2019s garden, and He has placed us in it to tend it, wherever He has planted us. \u00a0It is all His, but He allows us to live here and allows us to partake of the kindly fruits of the earth.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, our Lord has gone off into a far country.\u00a0 Jesus, our Lord, has ascended to Heaven and has left His Church to be the vinedressers of His vineyard.\u00a0 Like the vinedressers in this parable, and like the nation of Israel at the time of Christ, it might occur to us that while the cat\u2019s away the mice should play.\u00a0 Since Jesus is not here physically but is invisible to us, as are the Father and the Spirit, it would be easy for us to get off track and begin to act as if God didn\u2019t exist and we were not going to meet up with Him again at some point in time.<\/p>\n
Maybe you or someone you know has experienced this kind of newfound freedom while in college.\u00a0 While once you were under the watchful eye of your parents, now the world is yours to do with what you will.\u00a0 You know what\u2019s right and what\u2019s wrong, but now there are more temptations than ever before and no one to watch over you but yourself.<\/p>\n
In our lives as vinedressers of the Lord\u2019s vineyard, even though the Lord Himself is absent, He sends messengers into our lives.\u00a0 Maybe He sends an event into your life, a \u201cclose call\u201d or a \u201cwake up call\u201d that is intended to gently remind you to get back to the work the Lord has given you to do.\u00a0 Maybe He puts someone into your life to say something to you that triggers a return to God.\u00a0 And maybe you ignore the first messenger He sends, and the second one, and He sends more impressive and serious messengers until you return to Him.<\/p>\n
Have you ever had the experience in which you slowly drift back into the belief that you\u2019ve got things covered without the help of God?\u00a0 And then something goes wrong, or something happens that seems to be out of your control or beyond your ability to handle.\u00a0 But somehow, through hard work and a little luck things turn out O.K. and you\u2019re now released to go back to trusting in yourself.\u00a0 But then something else happens that\u2019s out of your control.\u00a0 How do you respond?<\/p>\n
As with the repentance that we talked about yesterday, we all have episodes where we act as if God is not Lord and we aren\u2019t accountable to Him.\u00a0 But the question is, as it was yesterday, will we return to Him, and will we do it sooner rather than later?<\/p>\n
To continue acting as if this world and my life isn\u2019t all God\u2019s is risky.\u00a0 I\u2019d hate to die on a day when I was ignoring God\u2019s messengers and was acting as if I owned my life and everything in it.\u00a0 It\u2019s risky to spend even a day without God because days have a habit of becoming weeks, and weeks have a habit of becoming months, and months . . . .\u00a0 There\u2019s a danger that, as with a nose dive, I might not ever pull out in time.\u00a0 Establishing the habit of ignoring God\u2019s voice in my life and the habit of believing my life is my own makes it that much more likely that this is a habit that may form me for life.<\/p>\n
But I prefer to write a different parable for myself today.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower.\u00a0 And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country.\u00a0 Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit.\u00a0 But one of the vinedressers ignored the servants and refused to hear what they had to say and selfishly began to treat the fruit as entirely his own.\u00a0 Again he sent other servants, more than the first, but this time the vinedresser who had ignored the first group of servants listened to the servants and gladly gave the landowner the fruit that He had asked for.\u00a0 When he received the fruit, the landowner permanently renewed his lease to the vinedresser and allowed him to continue to work for him and partake richly of the amazing fruits of his vineyard all the days of his life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prayer:\u00a0 Lord Jesus Christ, whose bread it was to do the will of the Father and who said, \u201cApart from me you can do nothing,\u201d bless me as I begin the work you have given me.\u00a0 Help me to work with diligence and cheerfulness, and direct me by Your wisdom and power that whatever I do may be a blessing to myself and others and a means of giving glory to Your name.\u00a0 Amen.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n Points for Meditation:<\/strong><\/p>\n