On Irritants and Abiding

Irritation has its benefits. A natural pearl is the result of the presence of an irritant—usually a parasite. To alleviate the irritation, a liquid begins to add layer after layer around the irritant to form a coating. The coating becomes the pearl. If I had made a pearl from every irritation in my life, I would be a spiritually wealthy woman today.

But an irritant needs a coating to make a pearl. From what can I make a coating that will turn my irritant into a pearl?

Here is where I start. Jesus said: “…apart from me you can do nothing.”^[1]

The phrase comes from those wonderful teaching moments that Jesus had in the upper room on the night of His betrayal. He was alone with His disciples. He knew the time of His departure was close. What did He choose to focus on? So much that could be said and so little time left to say anything.

And as Jesus and His most intimate circle gather around the table in the presence of the lamb, the bitter herbs, the bread and the wine, Jesus begins to talk about vines and branches.^[2]

And like the seed in the middle of the apple, it is a phrase tucked away in the middle of this particular discourse that takes me to that critical beginning point.

“…apart from me you can do nothing.”

Right here I am forced to stop, the irritation momentarily stilled, but not from my valiant, though in vain, efforts to still it.  I can’t fix this! That is a relief, but only after it produces a moment of despair. I can’t fix it so then, am I doomed to live with it and all its cousins for the rest of my life?

But no, the phrase says nothing about being unable to make a pearl out of an irritation. It simply says I, me personally, am unable to do that. But it implies that Jesus can do what I can’t.

So I must begin with the acknowledgment that the irritants in my life will remain just that—irritants—unless, and until, I recognize that I do not have the ability to make them into anything else without Christ.

In truth, left to themselves those irritants will only morph into other nasty things—bitterness, anger, self-pity, joylessness, thanklessness, and a host of others.

I would like the irritants removed. But there are times when that is simply not possible. And if the story of the pearl is any indication, there are likely times when God might choose not to remove the irritant or the irritation it causes, but to develop the coating which will make the irritation supportable, even valuable. So, I must either allow them to fester and grow into what I don’t want, or begin to cover them with what I do want.

Pause Point

Lord, I acknowledge the irritants in my life and my inability to do anything to deal with them. I also acknowledge that unless You work in my life these things will indeed fester and grow until I am consumed by all the unholiness that, with all my heart I wish to avoid. I am in Your hands, merciful God, repentant, helpless, and waiting.

 “TRUE”

Jesus is the vine. I note the word “true” as opposed to anything or anyone else I might attach myself to. He is the real deal, the genuine article. Strong notes that “true” is the “opposite to what is imperfect, defective, frail, uncertain.”^[3]

The irritation, parasitic or grain of sand, is an imperfection. Note that it is not the irritant that is the imperfection. The people or situations that irritate me are not the problem I need to “fix.” It is what they spark in me that is the problem that I need to deal with. Those people, that situation, are part of God’s plan for me and for my spiritual growth. Parallel to what God wants to do through them in me, God has brought me into their lives as part of His divine design for them. That’s a little terrifying. Can so much imperfection rubbing up against more imperfection result in anything good?

That’s where focusing on the “true” comes in. Paul, speaking about his own irritations, writes: “…there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me, But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”^[4]

I don’t think that Paul had analyzed the backstory of his statement on this “thorn” being “a messenger of Satan” — though it is presumptuous of me to say so. It is true that Satan does try us, but only with the permission of God who is sovereign over all things. The “thorn,” whatever it was, had become a “torment” as Paul describes it, but only until he learned that this weakness was divinely designed to demonstrate God’s strength in him. This “torment” is one of the nasty cousins to irritation that comes to inhabit the heart and mind when no covering of it is present. (Earlier it had been noted that Paul’s experiences might have caused him to develop an attitude of pride if it hadn’t been for the “thorn.”)

The message from God, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” parallels Jesus’ statement, “…apart from me you can do nothing.” It’s the “you can’t, but I can!” rule for dealing with irritations.

Jesus is the true, guaranteed, real deal, one-size-fits-all solution.

Pause Point

Lord, there are lots of voices out there that offer to fix the things that bother me. But each one of them, as good as they might be, are imperfect, defective, frail, and uncertain just as their creators are. But You are the True One. It is to You I must come first, last and always. Don’t let me forget. Make my ear tuned to hear Your voice above all others.

 “VINE”

The first phrase, “I am the true vine” connects a bit later in John 15 to “I am the vine; you are the branches” in verse 5. In fact, it seems odd that this latter phrase doesn’t appear earlier considering what Jesus says about pruning in verses 2-4. But we’ll get there.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the imagery. If we can do nothing without Jesus, then like the grapes hanging on their branches, fully dependent on the flow of growth-giving nutrients that come from the vine to which they are attached, then Jesus must be the vine from which all things and anything is possible for us. Jesus goes on to be more specific, just in case His disciples don’t get the picture: “If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” This symbiosis is also mentioned earlier in verse 4” “Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”

Of course, this idea of “remain” presupposes a connection already established. The disciples, at least the majority of them, had come to believe that Jesus was who He said He was—the Son of God, the Christ, the Messiah. They believed in the message of repentance and reconciliation that was the foundation of the good news of the Gospel. They were connected.

In the Old Testament the Spirit of God came and went as the need arose. But He did not stay. The promise that Jesus made on this extraordinary night was the promise that the day was not far off when the Spirit of God would come to live permanently within those who had come to abide, to remain, in Him.

“If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”^[5]

Did the disciples pick up on what Jesus was saying here? We have an example of the Trinity in this picture. Jesus promises to send them “the Spirit of truth who will permanently be with them. But they already know who this Spirit is. “But you know him, for he lives with you and will be with you” says Jesus. Yes, He had been with them—for the three and a half years that He had walked, talked and lived among them. And later, though His physical presence would be removed from them, He would come as the Spirit to live not just with them as He had, but in them. “I will come to you” He promises. “You will see me” He proclaims, though the world will not. Then the third connector: “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”

I am in God, and God is in me. We are attached just as the branches are attached to the vine.

There is another specific detail given about the connection between the vine and the branches, between Jesus and those who follow Him. “If you remain in me and my words remain in you…”^[6]

Throughout this evening discourse in the upper room, Jesus emphasized obedience. Earlier He had said: “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”^[7] The connection between this vine and these branches is not simply an intellectual one, a “Sure, I believe in Jesus” but a commitment to the One in whom that belief is deposited that evidences itself in walking in His footsteps.

His words, His commands, His teaching: “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”^[8]

Pause Point

Lord, I am attached to you. You are my vine. Through you flows the life that gives life—to the branches and ultimately to the fruit. You grafted me into the vine. Help me, as a baby draws nourishment from its mother’s breast, to draw on you as my life-giver. And as a newborn totally dependent on that mother, help me to cling to you, my sustainer of that life.

^[1] John 15:5

^[2] John 15:1-8, 16

^[3] https://www.blueletterbible.org

^[4] 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

^[5] John 14:15-20

^[6] John 15:7

^[7] John 14:23

^[8] John 14:15