Reflection by Anne Shannon
Member of Vineyard Canada’s Listening Team
Listening to God together in community is a rich experience. When everyone receives a different piece of a whole picture and you see how it all fits together, there is a moment of collectively experiencing something special. The same dynamic happens when we realize we have heard the same thing as someone else; something is confirmed. I love listening prayer and it is central to my relationship with God, and I really love listening together with others. When I was approached to join the National Listening Team, it was a privilege to say yes.
As a newcomer to the team, I began reading the summaries of what the team has gleaned from across the country in recent months; just getting up to speed, I thought. You can imagine my surprise, and awe, when I stumbled on a familiar picture and set of passages documented in notes from last March. The Listening team had identified the theme of a call that at a national level, we are to be planted by living water, as described in Jeremiah 17, Psalm 1, and Ezekiel 47. It was familiar because without knowing this, in September I had sensed to teach on this image, reflecting on these passages as well as a couple of others to start off the fall season in my local community, The Table. I was stopped in my tracks and began to ponder. I had a real sense that God is speaking something on a national and local level in this.
Will you listen together with me to this picture and this call? Let’s begin with what the different passages say.
Psalm 1 and Jeremiah 17:7-8 echo each other: likening the person who meditates on God’s word, and trusts in the Lord, to a tree planted by water that sends its roots by the stream and doesn’t fear when the heat comes. Its leaves are green and it never fails to give fruit. Psalm 1 describes it as yielding its fruit in season and whose leaves don’t wither.
Again, in Ezekiel 47, we hear about these trees planted by the river flowing from the temple and they are described as “fruit trees of all kinds on both banks of the river. Every month they will bear fruit because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.”
This same image appears again in Revelation 22, trees planted by the river of life, who bear fruit and whose leaves are for the healing of nations.
As I prepared to teach this in September to my own community, I sensed an emphasis on a personal call to examine our spiritual growth through the imagery of these trees. Where are we planted? As one member of our community pointed out, Psalm 1 points to the choice we have as to where we plant ourselves.
We considered how trees grow both upwards (phototropic growth towards the light) and downwards (gravitropic towards gravity). Downwards root growth seeks to draw nourishment from both the water in the stream and nutrients in the soil. Upwards growth seeks the light. What growth is needed for the particular season we are in? Are we doing deep heart work, pressing downwards with our roots? Are we looking upwards, toward the Light?
These passages point to some qualities to cultivate in ourselves that help to plant us and develop this kind of growth. Psalm 1 speaks of the person who meditates on God’s word, day and night. Jeremiah 17 describes the person who trusts in God, whose confidence is in Him. When we consider where we are at, we have some things to ask: how do I hold God’s word? What level of trust do I have in God? Are these areas for growth in this season in me? in our church communities? at a national level?
This growth isn’t simply for our own self-actualization a belief popular in our culture today, but rather this growth has a purpose, to bear fruit, provide shade, heal the nations. And the work of growth isn’t only ours. We are very familiar with John 15, “He is the vine, we are the branches” and then there is the image of God as gardener and pruner. Sometimes He is lifting branches to the light, and at other times cutting off the dead branches. Where are we participating with God in our growth and pruning? What is He touching within us that requires tending, so that we can bear more fruit? John 15 says that our part is to abide in Jesus. Abiding requires trust and rest into, like Jeremiah 17 calls us to. How are we abiding and holding steady in Jesus?
The national listening team discerned in March God calling us to plant ourselves by living water, to rely on and trust God and have the courage to stay planted by these waters so that we would bear fruit for the Kingdom. Beyond our personal growth, how can we consider this at a local church community as well as at a national Vineyard family level? Are we staying close to the river of living water? How are we holding God’s word? Are we abiding in Him? At what level do we rely on God and trust Him for our growth?
These are questions worth sitting with, both individually and together as a Vineyard family. As we continue to listen, may we remain open to what God is speaking and how He is inviting us to respond in this season.