I am having a bout with vertigo. This is where I wake up in the morning and move to get up but I can’t find up. I can’t stay up. I can’t sit up. For me, there is no up. There is only around and around. I spent an entire day in bed beleaguered by all the little movements I make that I don’t think about.
As the weekend progressed I realized I couldn’t drive so how was I supposed to get to work! I was disconnected from my family and disconnected from my church family. If I couldn’t drive and riding in a car made me nauseous, then how could I go anywhere? Even worse, I couldn’t stay on my computer for more than a few minutes. I couldn’t stay sitting up for more than a few minutes.
Then my son graciously drove me to the walk-in and the doctor gave me some pills to disconnect my inner ear from my brain. Who knew that what I needed was to be disconnected! When I take the pills, then my inner ear can’t tell my brain wrong things to make me dizzy.
It is a good thing to be disconnected. I need to be disconnected from wrong things and connected to the right things. So I need to stay disconnected from sin and sinful things.
Romans 6:12-14 That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead! —into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.
But I need to make sure I stay connected to God, my Savior, Jesus who is the vine! I need to stay connected to my fellow Christians. I need to stay connected to God’s word. I need to make sure every day I am reading the bible through, reading a scripture a day, studying for bible lessons or working through a book.
It is only by God’s grace and mercy that I am connected to the vine, a part of this wonderful family of God.
Romans 11:19-20 It’s certainly possible to say, “Other branches were pruned so that I could be grafted in!” Well and good. But they were pruned because they were deadwood, no longer connected by belief and commitment to the root. The only reason you’re on the tree is because your graft “took” when you believed, and because you’re connected to that belief-nurturing root. So don’t get cocky and strut your branch. Be humbly mindful of the root that keeps you lithe and green.
