Pruning, Storms, and Fruit

I’m sitting in an absolute WRECK of an office.  My office.  Rogue cords, files, laptops, printers are all akimbo.  It’s a sign of the transition I’m in – quitting 2 jobs in 2 months and starting a new one tomorrow.

When you tear things down and rebuild them differently, it produces fresh growth over time.  But in the middle of the process it can hurt like crazy.  This can happen with your relationships, redecorating your home, or changing your habits and life patterns for the better.

We drove to church this morning through a large swath of trees ravaged by a tornado last summer, observing that our lives feel like that right now.  We see, we remember, we cling to, what was cut down.  But God brings fresh undergrowth and shoots out of the storm, over time.  Something better than the status quo with which we were too content.  Much like a state that seeks only to preserve forests winds up with more fires, instead of cultivating, pruning, and taking dominion of what you have.

“There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,

And a branch from his roots shall bear fruit” – Isaiah 11:1.

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser…. 

Every branch that does bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit” – John 15:1-2.

Just as the Messiah arose out of the shambles of Israel’s exile, so God prunes His people so they bear fruit.  The history of God’s people is often one big “how much more” logical persuasion that God makes to us in our trouble.  It goes like this: if God could allow the mass deportation and destruction of most of His people, and preserve them and bring forth the Savior of the World from them afterward, HOW MUCH MORE can He bring good out of the lesser troubles in your life?

You might be living out of a box, or your office or emotions are a wreck, or you’re between jobs with an uncertain future, or you’ve just lost someone deeply important in your life.  Whatever it is, God is pruning you for future growth.  (It’s actually happening now, already, but probably only later will you learn some lessons through it and notice the growth.)

Or, if your life is currently stable, secure, and comfortable, then God is calling for fruit.  Are you serving others in need?  Are you saving up for your family’s future?  Are you straining to serve, or resting on your laurels in comfort?

Luke 12:15-21 - “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” 16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

There’s an old saying, that a Christian leader’s job is to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable.  It’s clever, and mostly true.  Exhort the comfortable to give, serve, strive more (Matthew 5:13-7:29).  Comfort the afflicted with patience and not demanding they produce fruit amidst traumatic pruning (Matthew 5:1-12).  Sometimes the comfortable feel afflicted, and need their vision recalibrated by God’s Word and sound counsel.  Sometimes the afflicted feel comfortable in the sin that is savaging their soul.  Or the afflicted feel condemned and need rest in the Gospel, not a call to strive to serve more just now.

As we read in Ecclesiastes 3 yesterday, to everything there is a season.

A time to uproot, a time to plant.

A time to submit to the surgeon's scalpel, a time to gut through it.

A time to heal, a time to work.

Know your spiritual state, and act accordingly.