God Promises Pruning
What areas of your life need pruning? Are you willing to allow God to prune you?
Verse of the Day
‘I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.’
Today’s Devotional
I heard a friend once talking about her rose bushes. She knew they needed to be pruned but she wasn’t sure how to do it. She asked a knowledgeable, green-thumbed friend for help. When her friend was finished pruning the rose bushes, my friend thought they were ruined. They looked naked. For a few weeks she was sad every time she looked at her roses. But then something started to happen. The rose bushes became full of leaves and blooms. That year, her roses were the prettiest they had ever been. She also admitted that in the years to follow, she had never been brave enough to prune them quite so drastically. She also admitted that her rose bushes had never again been as beautiful as they were the year her friend expertly pruned them.
We have much to learn from this story. Jesus is using an analogy of a vine and its branches instead of a rose bush, but the truth still remains. Jesus was very clear with us that we would need pruning. He tells us that God “cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.” God is the gardener, Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. Here is a horticultural note about grapevines: “Left to itself a vine will produce a good deal of unproductive growth. For maximum fruitfulness extensive pruning is essential.” Just like my friend’s roses.
The question then becomes, do we want maximum fruitfulness? Are we willing to submit ourselves to the Gardener for pruning? Are we willing to have “unproductive fruit” removed from our lives? In submitting to God, we must be aware that our definition of “unproductive” and God’s definition may be very different.
If we look at my friend’s story for its spiritual applications, we see a few things we would be wise to remember. First, we need help to know what needs to be removed. We must be willing to submit ourselves to the Father, the Gardener, for pruning. Next, we see that this process will likely need be uncomfortable. Letting go of certain habits, activities, people, ideas, beliefs, or wounds may leaving us feeling…naked, exposed, vulnerable. We may feel like we have been ruined. We will probably feel broken.
It’s been my experience that in times of feeling broken, I am so desperate for God’s help that I become much more surrendered to Him. Maybe that is one of the gifts of the pruning process, painful though it may be. Because just like the roses, we bloom and are much more fruitful after we have allowed God to prune us.
Lastly, pruning is not a one-time event. My friend wasn’t brave enough to continue the practice with her roses. I would suggest that many of us are not brave enough to submit our lives to the Gardener frequently for pruning. Which makes me ask myself if I really trust Him.
What if we made an intentional choice to set aside one weekend each quarter, or each year, to get alone with God and ask ourselves (with the Spirit’s guidance) some hard questions. Joyce Meyer writes: “Ask yourself: Am I dragging around “dead branches” in my life? Maybe it’s a bad relationship, an old wound from your past, a negative attitude that keeps you from enjoying life to the fullest or anything you look to for a sense of security other than God Himself. It would be nice if we could see what God sees and say, “Yes, God. Let’s get rid of that dead branch.” But many times we’re too afraid to give up what we know, what’s familiar, for something new that we just can’t see or understand. The truth is you can be miserable dragging those dead things around or you can go through the pain of letting God “prune” them away. Even though it’s uncomfortable, the best thing you can do is let God prune you, because after the hard part is over, you will see some amazing results!”
You will notice that today’s promise, the promise of pruning, is not in the warm-and-fuzzy category of many of the other promises. Pruning does not sound fun. It does, however, sound necessary…if we want our lives to be a display of maximum fruitfulness under the care and direction of our Father.
I can’t make a list for you of unproductive fruit in the life of a Christian. This is individual work between each believer and the Holy Spirit. I can share what some of my unproductive fruit has been. My opinions about how church should be done. My need to be right. My desire for comfort. The amount of time I spend watching television. The news. My desire to use anything other than God as a coping mechanism. My propensity for distraction and entertainment.
Some of these things were removed swiftly. For a few of them, the Gardener continues to work on removal, as I seem to be stubbornly holding on to some of my unproductive fruit.
The promise here is our fruitfulness. The condition of this promise is allowing God to remove distractions and/or reorder our lives for maximum effectiveness for His Kingdom. Are we willing?
Journal Prompts
Answer only the questions that seem relevant to you today.
Where have you seen God prune something from your life in the past?
How can you submit everything about your life to God in order for Him to prune you?
Is there anything in your life that you can identify that is blocking other parts of your life from God?
What is the Holy Spirit prompting you to remove from your life?
How would you rate your own “fruitfulness”? If in doubt, ask the Holy Spirit and also a trusted friend.
Look at your calendar and set aside a day or a weekend to get away and spend time with God. Intentionally put yourself in the hands of the Gardener.