A Thought About Divine Pruning and Spiritual Fruit

John 15:1-2

"I am the vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." 

If there is one thing I am not, it is a gardener. I have the biggest brown thumb on earth.  Never the less, every year when we lived on Granada in Scarborough, my husband and I would plant a vegetable garden out back, and a flower garden in the front.  Every year our garden looked, even at the best of times, really sad.

My neighbour however, happened to love gardening.  He had every kind of flower you could imagine on his front lawn.  So one year I said to him “Mr Robinson, how come it is that your rose bush always looks like something out of Better Homes and Gardens, while mine looks more like something you'd see in the Sunday morning funnies?
"Well", he asked me "do you ever prune it?"  I immediately responded. "Oh does that mean cutting off all the dead leaves and things? Yes sure I prune it!"
“No, No” he said, "if you want it to look better then cut off all the branches right down to the ground."
Well, I have to admit I was a little bit hurt because I didn't think it looked that bad, but he was serious. So being the trusting soul that I was I did as he suggested, I cut it right down to the ground....this little stump sticking out of the soil.
When my husband came home, he took one look at it, laughed, and said "I think we just lost our rose bush."  I was afraid that for the first time ever in our marriage that he was right!  (Don't worry he was wrong... phew!).

Do you know that our rose bush grew back fuller and more beautiful than it ever had in the previous 10 years that we had owned it. By pruning it we actually caused it to produce even more than it had before.

Have you ever had times in your life when you have felt really 'pruned' I mean really p r u n e d ?  It can be so hard.  At times I have felt that God has pruned me so low that I honestly didn't know if I'd ever get up again, never mind grow back and produce fruit.

I wonder, do we really understand what we are asking for when we pray for God to produce more fruit in us; to make us more like Jesus?
Looking back now I can see how various trials and hurts that I have gone through have actually helped me to grow.  These same trials have helped me to be able to honestly say to a friend "Yes, I know exactly what you are going through.  I can totally empathize."  It's because I wasn't shielded against those hurts that I can be sensitive to others who have experienced similar painful circumstances. It is actually through the trials, the hills and valleys that He allows to enter our lives that we begin to slowly produce the fruits of the Spirit, like patience...self control even joy!

If we truly pray, "Lord, produce fruit in me, make me more like Jesus", then we had better be prepared to accept whatever venue He chooses to integrate them into our lives.  Some of those will be easy to swallow and some of them might be quite difficult.  Only God in His great wisdom knows what works best for each of us as individuals.

So we can either accept the trials or so called 'prunings' as He gives them, or we can fight our way through them.  The outcome or type of fruit we produce, whether bad or good, all depends on what we do with each situation.

Each problem can make us a better person or a worse person.  It can bring us closer to God, or it can drive us further away.  It can build our faith, or we can allow it to shatter our faith.  The results depend on us.
But, if we do let God do His work in our lives, and accept him in His great wisdom to prune us as he sees fit, then He will lead us into much spiritual growth. That's all for now.