Pruning. It’s a foreign concept to most. I mean it makes sense, but how many of us have actually sat there and pruned back plants so they could actually produce better, fuller fruit. This month I have been doing just that.
The ministry I am a part of this month is super special to me. I actually got to return to the ministry I was a part of on my original race. The ministry is ran by an amazing American couple who use aquaponics and farming as part of the outreach to the village they are in.
So, here I am a second time. For a second time I get to experience what it looks like to care for plants. To see seeds produce vegetables and herbs that are able to be used in so many different ministry opportunities. I get to walk with plants from their earliest stages until they are fully grown.
One stage of the process that most of the plants walkthrough is pruning. I have pruned strawberries, basil, tomatoes, mint, cucumbers. Each one of these plants actually grows better when you cut off what appears to be healthy leaves and flowers. I have seen a lot of metaphors of God in so much of the process, but pruning, that is the one that has stuck with me.
I want to explain why and how you prune a basil plant. You have to prune a basil plant so that it will keep producing leaves and growing. If you don’t prune it, the basil plant believes it’s done growing and producing, and actually begins to die. But if you prune it, it will continue to grow and produce big beautiful basil leaves. Now here is the part that struck me. To prune the plant you actually cut the tops off that are about to flower. You cut off the top before it grows and blooms, or else the plant thinks it’s done. It seems counterintuitive to cut the top off if you want it to grow taller and fuller.
But this is exactly the process God walks through with me. God prunes away from me things that are seemingly good. He takes away the things that I think are good and beautiful to produce greater growth and fuller fruit in my life. Basil plants have beautiful purple flowers on them, but if they get to the point of flowering, they are actually not going to grow and produce to their fullest potential.
Where have I been satisfied with the beautiful at the expense of my fullest potential? I don’t believe that God just prunes the bad, but he prunes the good to grow in us the best. John 15:2 says “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” As I’ve been able to watch this process actually in action, I’ve been taken aback at how kind Jesus is to do this with us.
A basil plant still produces fruit if you don’t prune it. But it produces more fruit if you prune it. If you take the time to cut back the things that are good fruit, you can actually have the plant produce more fruit. But it must be pruned. It must go through the process of being cut down, refined, to produce its best.
I can still produce good fruit if I don’t let Jesus cut back and refine things in my life, but my best fruit comes when I go through the sometimes painful process of being pruned. I produce more fruit in the world around me when I let God cut out things that are beautiful and allow the process of pruning to happen.
What do you need to let God prune in your own life?
