Pruning For A Fruitful Life

Pruning For A Fruitful Life

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted! John 15:7

As a small boy, I used to watch my father prune the peach trees in our orchard. Even when I was very young, he taught me how to tell the difference between the branches that produced fruit and those that were diseased, dying, or already dead. The unhealthy branches could safely be pruned because they would never produce fruit. By the time I was a teenager, I could finger a branch in the dead of winter and know whether it had life teeming inside it or if it would only divert resources from the rest of the tree.

The branches that remained after pruning were our hope for a bumper crop, and we did whatever it took to protect them. If a late freeze was expected, we built a fire in the orchard to ward off the cold. During the growing season, my father kept an eye on each tree for signs of what it needed. More water? More fertilizer? A little more pruning? He spent countless hours nurturing the trees and protecting their yet-to-be-borne fruit.

Jesus is the watchful gardener who tends to our spiritual health. He sees what we need even before we recognize it. And he is quick to offer us protection. But unlike a tree, we can decide whether or not we will live and abide in him. Do we allow him to take care of us, or do we think we know what’s best and resist his care? Do we have branches that need pruning—areas of our lives that need to be cut away and discarded?

When we allow the master gardener to tend to us, he never reduces our fruitfulness; he only increases our yield. But when we resist his pruning, we end up hanging on to dead, diseased, or sinful areas of our lives that prevent us from being fruitful.

Jesus invites you to remain in him and allow his truth and wisdom to prune your life and make it more fragrant and fruitful than you can imagine.

TODAY’S RX

In medicine, surgery is much like pruning—we cut away the dead and diseased parts. We need to allow the Great Physician to do the same thing to us spiritually if we want to thrive and bear good fruit.

Jesus, thank you for tending to me so carefully, preserving me through harsh seasons and growing me in others. May my life be fruitful and pleasing to you.