Sat, Jun 10th - 9:53PM

Circumstances-God's Pruning Tools

Since I’m a gardener, I often find it necessary to do some pruning.  Yesterday while working in my garden, I imagined what my tomato plants might be saying to me if they could talk.    Perhaps, “Ouch.  Why are you doing that?   Why are you cutting off some of my branches?  Don’t you know how much effort I’ve put into growing that new sucker?  If you loved me, you would not hurt me like this.” But I needed to prune, to cause the plant to direct it’s growth energy into the central stem, so that frost would not catch it’s fruit unripe at the end of the season and destroy everything.

God is also a gardener.  In John 15:1-6 it says.  “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.-----Anyone who parts from me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers.” (NIV)  He works on us whether we like it or not.  God uses circumstances as his pruning tools.

At one time, I didn’t like this passage because I thought it meant God throws away those Christians who do not produce enough church works.  But that’s not what the passage says at all.  It says God will cut out of our lives the things and people that are counterproductive to his highest good for us.

 The pruning may come through financial difficulties, health issues or personal relationships-and pruning will be painful.  I’ve cried many tears over family members who have separated themselves from me.  But when I think of how my life would be different now if those two loved ones were still a part of my life, I’m glad God separated them from me.  Had they stayed, I would have become like them.  I would have given them too much of my time and attention.  God had different things in mind for me.

Recently a young man called at our home wanting council and advice over family and financial situations.  But he did not really want advice: rather, he wanted to complain and rail against God.  His attitude was bitter. “ If God cared at all,” he said, “he would not let these things happen to me.  God does not love me.  I’m not even sure if I believe in God anymore.”  We could not dissuade him from his position.  He could not accept that maybe God was using this situation to prune some undesirable stuff out of his life.

This young man was cutting himself off from fellowship with God by his attitude.   God didn’t do this cutting off.  He did that to himself.  By his attitude, he cast himself on the trash heap of God’s useless branches.  When a person carries an attitude of resentment, bitterness, and unbelief, God can’t do anything for him because he has separated himself from God. 

There is a purpose to everything God allows to enter our lives.  Deuteronomy 8:2-3 says, “Remember how the Lord your God led you through the wilderness for forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would really obey his commands.”  That’s a hard truth to swallow.  God uses calamities to test our character!  I’m soft.  I wish the tests weren’t so hard.  But a grape does not produce wine till it’s crushed.  Neither do we show our true character till we face difficulties.    How we handle calamities shows whether the Love of God is truly within us or whether we are filled with the fruits of the devil.

Job shows us a good example of how to handle calamities.   In one day he had to face four of them.  First, all of his animals and farmhands were killed by a raiding party of  Sabeans. Then lightning killed all his sheep and shepherds.  Then another messenger came, and told him the Chaldean raiders stole all his camels.  Then a wind- storm came up, and killed all of his children.  “Yet in all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God.” (Job 1:22)  We are so quick to blame God or question him if he knows what he is doing.

Job didn’t do that.  He fell on his face and acknowledged the sovereignty of God. “God, you are God.  You know what you are doing.  I praise and thank you.” (This writer’s paraphrase)

We can either co-operate with God in the pruning process, or we can, by our attitudes, cut ourselves off from God.

When we whine and complain, find fault with everything and everyone and blame God for our troubles, we cut ourselves off.  That’s very easy to do.

To co-operate with the pruning process is much harder.  We have to let God be God.   We have to pray like Jesus did: “Not my will, but thine be done.”   When things don’t go the way we want them to, we need to be aware of the possibility that maybe our Heavenly Gardener is at work in our lives, wanting to re-direct us.

The aim of this heavenly pruning process is to get us so in tune with our Heavenly Father, and to get so much divine life flowing through us, that all our prayers will be answered. John 15:16

When we feel the pain of pruning circumstances in our lives we need to pray: 

Dear Heavenly Father,

You are the Gardener of my life.

I don’t like what’s happening,

But you know what you are doing.  You have my best interests in mind.

I praise you and I thank you that you are working in my life.

I leave the outcome up to you.

In Jesus name,

Amen