Most Baptist pastors will not admit to knowing much about wine making but a little research on the "fruit of the spirit" turned up these truths about growing good grapes and about making fine wine.
-To plant a vineyard, you start with shoots not seeds. Shoots grow better. After the first year, you cut the shoots back and do not let them produce fruit. You do the same in the second year.
-Only in the third year to you actually produce grapes, but then they are usually left on the vine. Only after four years do you harvest grapes for the best wine.
-After bottling that first crop, it is allowed to age seven or eight years before the wine is even tasted.
-Most vineyards don't break even on the investment until year fifteen, eighteen or beyond.
Conclusion: It takes serious patience to produce fruit of the vine, it is no quick process.
God has some serious patience with us. He does not say he wants to produce quick results, he wants to produce fruit. Like an experienced vintner (that is the proper term for someone who plants a vineyard) he knows the best harvests come with the most time. We have to allow him that in our selves. The production of the fruit of the spirit is not an overnight process, it is life-long, on-going, time consuming.
Maybe that is part of the reason Jesus said, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." John 15:5
For the journey...
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