Oh to be pruned...

...every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.
                                                                                                                    - John 15:2b


As my husband and I were reading in John last night for Good Friday this verse and this concept really stuck with me and is still with me tonight.  I've been thinking a lot about the death and resurrection of Christ as is natural for most Christians during Holy Week and especially on Easter weekend.  However, I think even more than His death and resurrection I've been contemplating His work...His life...His mission in this world and in you and me.  Obviously the resurrection of Christ was the culmination of His ministry here on earth and was the reason He came to earth in the first place.  He came to bridge the gap; to make it possible for us to be in relationship with the Father.  The passage about Jesus being the vine, the Father being the vinedresser, and us being the branches is all about that.  It is about abiding in Christ and thus in the Father and learning to live life as one with Christ.  But it is more than that, as verse 2b shows us.  We cannot simply say that we are Christians and now our lives will be happy and wonderful all the time and go on our merry way.  No.  When we choose to abide in Christ we are taking on a new life, a new identity, and we are saying that we are no longer willing to conform to the image of the world but rather we want to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  We want to be more like Christ. 

If we are to call ourselves Christians then we MUST bear fruit.  The fruit of a person's life is the evidence of Christ in them and working through them.  If there isn't any fruit then something is wrong.  If someone claims Christ but you never see Christ in them then I would question the authenticity of their claim.

Jacob and I once did an excercise on a road trip that we decided is something we should do every so often to keep us in check.  We went through the fruits of the spirit in each other to see where we were bearing fruit and where we needed to be pruned (although we didn't call it that at the time, that is a result of my reading last night).  We went through each fruit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control) and spoke with each other candidly about how we felt these things were being evidenced in our own lives and in each others lives.  We also took the time to look at each of our close family members so that we could more specifically pray for each of them.  We have been given a guideline that very clearly shows whether or not we are truly abiding in Christ and if we (as Christians) take the time to look deeply enough we will find some areas where we thought we were doing well but in reality we need some serious work.

After reading last night I started to think about the process of being pruned.  Christ says that in order to bear more fruit we must be pruned.  Pruning is not pleasant, but it is necessary.  Parts of you are literally cut off in order to make room for better things.  Not pleasant.  My mom prunes her roses several times a year.  She goes out and cuts off all of the dead stuff in order to make room for new growth.  Here's the kicker though...she has to cut past the dead and into some of the live stuff.  You can't simply cut off the eyesore, the wilted pieces, the dead blooms.  No, you must go deeper.  You have to cut to the quick.  You have to get down to where there is life again so that new growth can come and flourish.  In other words, you have to bleed a little. 

Christ calls us to abide in Him and to let the Father prune us so that we can grow and bear more fruit.  He calls us to bleed a little, or sometimes a lot.  When I was in high school my youth pastor used an analogy that has stuck with me.  He said that there are two methods that God uses to effect change in our lives: the Jergens method and the Machete method.  The Jergens method is nice, and slow, and not too tough to go through.  Over time God will simply soften us, rub out the callouses with lots of lotion if you will.  Sometimes though, we are just a little too thick for that.  Sometimes God has to do something drastic to get through to us.  That is where the Machete method comes in.  Every now and then God will come along and chop off a limb in order to get our attention.  I much prefer the Jergens method... 

I don't think this post is flowing very well because I'm literally just typing what I'm thinking as I'm thinking it (verbal processor here) so I hope you are still with me...if you're still reading :)   

As much as I don't like being pruned, I do desire more than anything to grow and bear fruit.  I am not content to simply be.  I am not content to call myself a Christian but fail to live my life as to be worthy of that calling (since I can call myself a Christian all I want but I'm not actually a Christian if I don't live a Christian life...I don't believe in fire insurance.  But that's a whole other topic that I'll probably blog about someday).  If I am not changing then I am not abiding and I want nothing more than to abide in Christ.  I have lived in the Jergens method and I have certainly had my Machete moments and events.  I think that I would take the analogy a little further though.  I think that Jergens is an ongoing daily thing.  It is us asking God to keep our eyes and hearts open to Him and to His people.  It is us praying fervently to always be willing to lend a hand, go somewhere new, and love everyone we come into contact with...everyone (that's a hard one for me sometimes).  The Machete on the other hand is something that is necessary sometimes and it cuts us fast, hard, and deep.  It will probably only happen a select few times in your life and you will likely be able to pinpoint each of those moments and events and say, "God used that to get through to me in a big way."  Those will be the moments where your faith rocketed forward to a new level and you found yourself in deeper relationship with Christ than you had ever been before.  Those are the events that get your faith to a level that you would never have reached were it not for the machete.

The reason I would take this analogy further is that sometimes we need more than lotion but less than a machete.  Sometimes we need pruning sheers.  Pruning sheers are more precise.  They are more targeted.  The Machete cuts to the roots, but the pruning shears...they simply cut to the quick.  They help to isolate each part of us that needs to be cut away in order to make room for something new, something much more Christ-like.  With each snip and cut we are laid a little more bare.  We bleed a little every time God takes the shears to us and we feel just a little more exposed.  If we are truly abiding, as Christ calls us to, then we are making ourselves vulnerable to Him, and sometimes that is a little scary to some of us (i.e. me).  If I make myself vulnerable then I have to admit each and every one of my shortcomings, my imperfections, my sins, so that God can cut them away one by one to make room for His beauty to shine through.  Beauty for ashes...it sounds nice, but it isn't easy.  It stings.  It's uncomfortable and it's messy and it's hard and it's every single day...