Blessed Pruning

I find it fascinating and counterintuitive that Jesus teaches us here that, if we’re growing spiritually, our Father prunes us so that we’ll bear more fruit.

Pruning, as gardeners know, is cutting away unfruitful branches so that the life of the plant will flow into the branches that are already fruitful, so they’ll bear more fruit.

Verse one tells us it is our Father who does the pruning, so we know it is with extreme skill, love, and care. This makes a difference. Any time we feel loss (pruning), there can be a sense of that loss and discouragement, or sadness, or even anger. Loss is loss we feel.

But our Father, who has all wisdom, knows things that need to go in our lives to really grow us deeper in spiritual fruitfulness and maturity. Knowing He loves us and knows best, we can settle into faith in Him and receive the loss in anticipation that He is at work moving us forward.

Perhaps we have been drawn into more things than we can thrive in? It's easy to do. We can get spread too thin. When that happens, do we quickly realize that our spiritual growth is paying the price and being neglected? Often, we’re blind to that. So our Father prunes to help our spiritual growth and maturity increase.

Look at loss through your Father’s eyes and the truth of John 15:2. Let’s keep pressing on to maturity!