Use a trellis for more fruitful living.

Setting a Cage  

Setting a Cage

Today, I put a cage around my tomato plant in anticipation of it’s inevitable growth and need for support. As I did so I was reminded of an important lesson I once heard a Trappist monk share. I had gone on a retreat to a monastery in southern Missouri with a group of college students. I was a student myself at the time. We spent a week at the monastery and each day we got a little time to pray with Basil Pennington. If you are unfamiliar with who he is, Basil is a trappist monk who has played a significant role in revitalizing centering prayer as a contemplative prayer practice. He has written a number of books with a focus either on centering prayer or incorporating monastic prayer practices into daily living. One day he asked us what our rule of life was. Did we have some guiding principle that we sought to follow each day? He mentioned that a rule of life was much like a trellis. It offered support and direction. He explained that a plant without a trellis, tends to sprawl about on the ground and produce a limited number of blossoms. Take that same plant and give it a trellis and it will grow more vibrantly and tends to only be limited by the trellis.

A rule of life offers us the same valuable support and direction. I have a trellis or two that help me be more fruitful. One is a daily declaration that I make. Each morning, I make the declaration, “I greet this day with joy, for I am blessed.” Doing so sets a good and Godly intention for the day. Doing so also reminds me of a fundamental truth that I want to carry into the day, “I am a blessed person. All that I have has come from God and I have more than I possibly need, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.”

I also have a prayer trellis that has guided me in other ways. Most often when I pray at some point I acknowledged to God, that I have been richly blessed and it is my desire to be a blessing to others. I also frequently prayer that God helps me integrate my being and my doing that I might reflect Christ and glorify Him. That may sound a bit odd, but I recognized a few years ago that were some gaps between whom I believe God crafted me to be and what I was doing with my particular gifts and time. I have diligently sought since then to be more fully whom I believe God intends me to be. The more I can fully live into that the less stressed I am and the more my life seems to reflect Jesus Christ.  So pursuing being a blessing to others and integrating my doing and my being is another trellis I set through prayer.

These verbal acclamations and desires help me bear more fruit for God. What guiding principles do you use in your life? For example, WWJD–What Would Jesus Do, was for awhile a very popular guiding Christian principle. What is something you arise hoping to do or be that would glorify God? Try to identify that and regularly declare it to God and yourself. These guiding principles are invaluable tools of support and direction that will allow you to bear more fruit.

Blessings to you from The Practical Disciple

1 thought on “Use a trellis for more fruitful living.”

  1. I have been working on being the me I was created to be and living that full out. So that is one of the things I pray about asking God to help me get there and knowing the closer I am to that, the more usable I am to God. The other thing I am overwhelmed with is appreciation for God’s creation and seeing him reflected in nature and in my life as well. I am loving the beauty of this world. I am also extremely humbled by the fact that God really does know me and takes care of me. Incredible.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published.

Scroll to Top