The Vine That Learned to Climb

In the Willamette Valley of Oregon, a vintner named Rebecca bends down each spring to pick up young Pinot Noir shoots that have fallen from their trellis wires. Left to themselves, the vines would sprawl across the soil — tangling with weeds, rotting where moisture collects, producing small, bitter fruit that never fully ripens. But she gently lifts each shoot, wraps it around the guide wire, and ties it loosely with a soft cloth strip.

She isn't punishing the vine. She's training it.

Over the growing season, the guided vine reaches higher toward sunlight. Its leaves spread wide. Its grape clusters hang freely in the breeze, drying after rain instead of moldering on the ground. By October, those clusters yield fruit so concentrated and sweet that a single vine can produce wine worth savoring for years.

Paul tells Titus that the grace of God has appeared — and that this grace teaches us. Not scolds us. Not shames us. Teaches us. Like the vintner's hands on the young shoot, grace lifts us from the sprawl of ungodliness and worldly passions and trains us upward toward self-controlled, upright, godly lives.

The trellis wire is not a prison. It is the very thing that makes abundant fruit possible. And the hands that tie us to it are hands of grace — patient, gentle, and utterly committed to our flourishing in this present age.