WHAT MORE COULD I HAVE DONE?

I may as well throw out the question to you since I've been asking it of myself a lot lately:

Are you bearing any sort of good fruit? I mean good-for-something, usable fruit? Or is He going to show up expecting a harvest and find a lot of unusable grapes?

Last night we shared our our life and faith journeys with our small groups. And as I wrote things down in preparation, I was reminded again of * A L L * God has done to make a way for me, preserve my life, protect me even when it annoyed the heck out of me, and remind me a million times that He fully intends to use me for His purposes.

So with that as the backdrop, He also brought to my mind a passage I'd read about a year ago as I read through the book of Isaiah:

God had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.
He dug it up and cleared it of stones
and planted it with the choicest of vines.
He built a watchtower in it
and cut out a winepress as well.
THEN HE LOOKED FOR A CROP OF GOOD GRAPES
BUT IT YIELDED ONLY BAD FRUIT.
He asked,
"WHAT MORE COULD HAVE BEEN DONE FOR MY VINEYARD THAN I HAVE DONE FOR IT?"

As I read this, I'm mindful of the way God has prepared my life to be fruitful. I can think of times when things were dug up and stones were cleared away. I can think of things He has planted and established in my life. I'm sure you can think of these same things in your own life.

And consider the watchtower and winepress in this passage. That watchtower speaks of expectancy, watching, waiting on His part. And that winepress suggests He fully expected a harvest good enough and usable enough to produce wine. And after the preparations He has made for us, He fully expects a harvest of good fruit in our lives, too.

Because really--what more could He have done for you and for me than He has already done for us?

And why then does He return to find an unusable harvest? In this passage, very little of what He found in the vineyard was usable. His ten-acre vineyard produced only 6 small jugs of wine. And the rest? Unusable. What a waste.

Your life is a vineyard. My life is a vineyard. Does your marriage bear fruit? How about your efforts as a parent? Would your co-workers say you bear fruit? How about the friends who know you best? I'm taking an honest assessment of these things, too--and honestly, there are parts of my life that aren't yielding good fruit. But I want so very much for my life to bear fruit--fruit that can be of use in His Kingdom. I don't want Him to look over the span of my life--a life that He did everything to ensure would be a fruitful one--and find very little to use.

Think over your life--the ways God has ensured that your life should bear fruit. I'm sure the list in long.

So then...does it?