Painful Pruning
A few months back, I wrote a post I called “Struggling Vines Produce Better Wines.” This was a quote from Ryson, who explained this principle to us as we looked at a Southern Illinois vineyard. He told us that unless a grapevine has to struggle and work to get to water and nutrients, it will not produce good fruit. Vineyards are planted on hillsides so their roots will have to go deep to get water.
This was a pretty profound thought to me since the Bible clearly calls Jesus the vine and we the branches in the vineyard (John 15). So the spiritual applications are challenging: God will not make life easy for us but that’s a good thing because of the sweeter, more complex fruit it produces in us.
In addition, grapes require proper pruning, and Jesus is straightforward about that, too: “Every branch that does not bear fruit he trims clean so that it will be even more fruitful.” (John 15:2) To prune means to cut back dead or superfluous parts. That actually doesn’t sound pleasant, either. But it’s necessary, as any gardener knows.
If you are a Beth Moore fan, you know she also has studied grapes and vineyards extensively, has written a book called Chasing Vines, and has her own vineyard. She wrote about how hard it was to cut all the fruit off her precious vines the first year. Apparently, if new vines are allowed to grow full-size grapes too soon, they will break off the branches and damage the vine.
If you look at the pictures of how to prune a vine, it looks like sheer butchery. You have to cut off all but one shoot for a while to make it the strong trunk. Branches and even leaves have to be removed to allow for sun exposure or disease will take over. Training to a trellis also reduces the risk of disease.
Do you see all this difficulty? The vine has to be continually restrained, trained, directed, and cut back from what it naturally wants to do. It would continue to grow if it weren’t pruned and trained, but the fruit would not be abundant or sweet or interesting. And sometimes there would be no fruit at all. And disease would be likely.
So for all of us having to submit to these hardships, and I expect that’s everyone reading this, keep going. Maybe God has pruned out relationships, or jobs, or favorite activities, or physical abilities, or traditions, or income. Whatever it is, He can see that branch is going to weaken you or keep the light out. I think it’s very hard to see how it’s going to be good in the long run. All we see is the stripped, ugly, bare place. But take heart. God sees ahead, and He sees his beautiful, precious, lush vineyard bearing the sweetest of fruits.
