If I live to be 100 my tombstone will have on it 1957 – 2057. That’s a pretty poor record of my life really – when I was born and when I died. But what did I do in between those dates? How will I have filled up the dash in between those two dates? In morse code a dash is the letter “t”. Will my dash stand for trash or for treasure. And I trust there’ll be a minimum of tension, trauma and tedious toil.
Jesus said that he was the vine and we are the branches, and that we should abide (remain) in Him because apart from Him we can do nothing. The context was about being fruitful so “nothing” meant no fruit, nothing eternal. Our fruit is our character and our works. In fact fruitfulness is not an option because Jesus went on to say that our fruitfulness shows our discipleship.
Elsewhere in the gospels Jesus speaks of degrees of fruitfulness – 30, 60, and 100 fold. It’s God’s intention for each one of us that He would work in us to maximise our fruitfulness. Get connected to Jesus and make the most of your dash so that you, like Paul, will one day say “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”