From Brad Wilcox’s book of the above title:
Brent Fillmore teaches at the Institute of Religion adjacent to Utah State University. When he speaks to classes of a covenant relationship, he talks about a stalactite hanging from the top of a cave dripping water on the floor below. In the water are minerals that will soon start building up until they create a stalagmite reaching up toward the stalactite above. In time the two join and create a column or pillar. If we were to personify the relationship, the stalactite, like the vine, gives, and the stalagmite, like the branch, receives. The receiver reaches up as the giver reaches down.
The stalagmite is not self-sufficient. Without the stalactite, no growth is possible. Brother Fillmore says, “The very droplets from above contain within them the elements and minerals of the stalactite through which they have passed. Those minerals land on the stalagmite—drop by drop, line upon line—and help it grow like what is above it until they become one. He asks his students to stop running around and just be still like a stalagmite. “Just let yourselves get dripped on from above!” he tells them.
The nurturing relationship between a vine and branch or a stalactite and stalagmite helps me understand my covenant relationship with God. My job is not to do my part in order to receive grace, for there is nothing I can do in and of myself. In our relationship with the Lord, He declares, “My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply” (Hymns , no. 85). Paul taught that we must “work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling,” and then he added, “For it is God which worketh in you” (Philippians 2:12-13). In his reciprocal relationship, God’s expectation is that I accept the grace that He offers—that I welcome it, grow, and pass it on.
. . . . The relationship between a bridegroom and his bride helps me understand my covenant relationship with God. Marriage is not a contract between party A and Party B. It is an institution in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. As we willing take Christ’s name, He willingly gives it, together with His grace. Our obligation is to stay faithful and to never leave Him, just as He promises to never leave us. Our motivation is the deep love we have for one another. Together with Him, we can become more than we could be on our own.
Ezra Taft Benson declared, “Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, rise up friends, and pour out peace.”7
Whether we think of Christ adult, vine, companion, good Samaritan, or bridegroom, we are always dependent on Him and better because of Him. Of course, I can be selective in the examples I have chosen to share in this chapter. There are many other metaphors and parables in the scriptures that actually move in opposite directions. ~ Brad Wilcox, Changed Through His Grace (quoted here from the Dwarsligger edition)
