It may seem foolish to cut back vine branches to produce more and better grapes. Yet pruning is a centuries old practice of vinedressers. Sometimes after pruning, grapes don’t return in force for two full years.
In the same way, the Lord allows “counterproductive” cutbacks in our
lives. It could be a job loss, health issue or a struggle in a relationship. With pruning, situations may vary, but pain is usually involved. So we tell Him, “Lord, You don’t understand; I could be so much more productive if You would only change this circumstance… today!” I’m glad He doesn’t take orders like some genie in a bottle. He really is better at being God.
We may conclude trials signify He is angry with us. Yet Jesus stated just the opposite. The reason He prunes those who bear some fruit is to enable them to produce more. In His words:
John 15:1-2 – “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.”
So what does He accomplish with pruning? In short, dependence.
John 15:4-5 – “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
The Lord is obviously not impressed with our self-generated attempts to serve Him. Unattended vine branches can have rapid, but mostly worthless growth, yielding few and low quality grapes. In the same way, apart from Him, our relentless activity is worthless, producing no genuine spiritual fruit. Unless we consciously depend on the life of Christ within to produce fruit, we can do “nothing.” Wait, nothing? Nothing of value. He is dogmatic on this matter of source. So, are we living off His life, or our own paltry human strength?
First things first though; we can’t depend upon the life of Christ, if He is not inside us. Maybe someone reading needs to take that first step of receiving Christ into your life. He enters in by invitation, as He says in John 1:12-13, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” More on receiving Christ here.
So we might tie together the concepts of pruning and dependence in this way: He allows hardships to bring us to the end of our own strength, and to encourage us to draw resources from Him. This explains why we find ourselves helpless to change frustrating circumstances, because it is only in our weakness and desperation that we switch over to Christ as the source of life. So don’t fight the trials, whatever they may be. Sure, ask Him to remove them, but realize they are not senseless. They teach us to abide in Christ, and we only discover the fullness of life through Him. This is true: I heard it from the grape vine.
