By Rae Lynn DeAngelis
“…Every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” (John 15:2)
Perhaps like me you have wondered… if our lives are bearing fruit, why do we need to be pruned? Why would God want to cut the branches of our lives that are already producing fruit? Let me share with you how I came to understand the benefit of pruning.
Every summer I plant petunias in the flower boxes of my front windows. When I first plant these blooms, they look puny and sparse. But within a few weeks, the vines grow long and thick, cascading from the window boxes like waterfalls.
One year several weeks after the flowers were planted, I stood outside our house admiring our beautiful flowers. I couldn’t believe they were the same sparse saplings we had planted just weeks ago. Seeing how much our plants had grown gave me a sense of pride. “Pride goes before destruction….” (Proverbs 16:18)
The very next morning, when I opened our front window blinds, I received the shock of my life. Our precious flowers were gone—eaten down to little nubs. A wave of nausea hit me as I thought about my friend’s recent warning to spray deer repellant on our flowers. How could I be so careless? It was a common sight to see deer munching on people’s landscaping. I’m not sure what made me think our flowers were different from anyone else’s in the neighborhood. It was only a matter of time before the deer discovered the smorgasbord in our window boxes. What bothered me most was realizing the deer had devoured our flowers at their peak.
As days and weeks went by, I began to notice something exciting. The petunias began to bud and flourish again. And to my surprise (in time) they became even more lush and beautiful than before.
I then realized the deer had actually done us a favor. They had pruned our flowers and enabled the plants to produce even more blooms than before. My limited perspective kept me from seeing the true potential of our plants. It wasn’t until I saw the lavish new growth that I finally recognized our plants were capable of producing so much more.
The same is true for you and me. God knows our true potential for bearing the greatest possible harvest of fruit. For this reason, we can trust God when He begins pruning certain areas of our lives. God will sometimes prune that which already produces good results in our lives for the purpose of coaxing us to bear even better results someplace else. “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” (Hebrews 12:11) “Jesus said, ‘You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’” (John 13:17)
Painful as it may be to endure, we must surrender our lives to God’s pruning shears. When the process becomes a little too painful to bear, just remember our petunias. Lush new growth is just around the corner.
“This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” (John 15:8)