Day 25 - Back into New Mexico

The route I have been following; route 180/62 heads back into New Mexico before it goes back into Texas and heads towards Dallas. With the storms they had yesterday; I heard 12 tornadoes hit that area; I am not sure what I might see riding through that area. Even as I type this blog; if I was really there; maybe it would be good if I held up the ride for a few days and volunteered some time to the clean-up of the debris left from the storm. Of course, I have to ask myself the question, do I really care enough to postpone what I am doing to help others? I may have to think more about that in the next several days of riding. Today's ride went well. I rode 40.6 miles in 2 hours and 10 minutes for an average of 18.6mph. I felt good as I rode though. One person who has talked to me about my ride and the blog said that I need to ocassionally let people know my total miles. To date, I have ridden just under 900 miles of the approximately 2200 for the entire trip. I am right on schedule for the time period I had set for the trip. It was nice in western Texas again today - a great day for riding.
Thinking about John 15 again, I was thinking about verse 5. He starts out saying, "I am the vine, you are the branches." Two things are interesting about this. First, this is the first time that He actually calls us the branches. Up till now He has been talking about branches, but He does not call us branches until verse 5. Second, we now see the characters in this world of ours. Verse one He said that He was the vine. God the Father is the vinedresser or the gardener. And we are the branches. Those are the three things needed to bear fruit. The vine could bear fruit by itself but the vinedresser cares for the vine to help it to do all it is meant to do. But the vine and the vinedresser do not want to do it all. He wants to use the branches to be an active part in the fruit bearing. At the same time, we should never think we, as branches, can do it apart from the vine and vine dresser. And He wants each of us to know that for He goes on to say, "Whoever abides in me and I in Him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." It is an awesome thought to think that the only way I can bear fruit is by abiding in Him. How am I doing - how are you doing when it comes to abiding, abiding in Him? Talk to you tomorrow, Lord willing.