02/19/2022
When all around us appears to be prospering; when spring is turning the landscape green, and the birds are returning with their morning songs to brighten up the day, it is especially easy for us to ask “Why me Lord?” when trouble and suffering comes to us. Yet spring is when the grape farmer prunes his vines, and clears the undergrowth from around them. This is when last year’s growth is removed to make way for a bountiful new harvest, and when those that didn’t produce fruit are cut down, dug up, and burned. If you are facing trials in your life you should rejoice because you are being prepared for a bountiful season ahead.
“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.”
John 15:2 ESV
Many years ago, when I was in my late teens, I went to the bottom of my parent’s yard where I tilled a row, dug holes, set posts, and stretched heavy wire between them. Then, I lovingly planted young grape vines down the row, and tended to them. By harvest they had grown tall, and taken hold of the wire. Their branches had produced grapes, and they were sweet to the taste. The next year I pruned them, and took away the weeds that had made a home at their base, and my harvest was even greater… and I was pleased at the result.
“By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.”
John 15:8-9 ESV
It had been many years since I planted those vines when I travelled back to Virginia for my father’s funeral. I was sad and mourning his loss so I walked alone to a quiet place in my parent’s yard to reminisce and pray. There, alongside the fruit trees, was the row of grape vines I had planted so long ago, but they had not been pruned in many years, and like me they were showing their age. Later I asked my youngest brother about them, and that spring he cut them back, pruned them, and my mother later commented that their branches had been loaded with grapes that year. The bounty of the vine depends on the handiwork of the farmer…
“Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.”
John 15:3-4 ESV
The Bible uses grape vines to tell us a truth about faith, and ourselves. Jesus talks specifically about this as He makes us aware that God doesn’t allow us to experience random pain and suffering, but uses these seasons in our lives as an opportunity to increase the fruit we will bear. He also uses the vines to warn us of what occurs when we don’t bear fruit at all…
“If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”
John 15:6 ESV
Like the farmer, our Father’s intention is for us to bear much fruit for Him. He will look after us, cut away our dead branches, and clear the weeds from around us that sap our strength. He has no desire for us to be barren, or for our branches to die. This brings him no pleasure, and He gains no glory from it. He wants the beauty and bounty of our growth to glorify Him… this is what pleases Him.
“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.”
John 15:7-8 ESV
A farmer takes no greater pleasure than to walk through his fields in the evening after supper, here, after the workday is done he finds rests amidst the beauty that his hands have made possible. He walks beneath the Fruit trees and along the rows of vines laden with fruit, and he stands in the fields of grain, as he admires them. We know that God walks in His gardens too, and that He hopes to take pleasure in us, but are we growing as we should? Has the pruning He so carefully administered brought fruit to us, and glory to Him?
“And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”
Genesis 3:8 ESV
So like the vines, we will feel the discomfort of the pruning shears in their season, but from each cut there will spring forth new growth and much fruit. We know from scripture that God wants us to glorify him, but we can’t provide him that glory unless we are lush, green, and bearing fruit mightily. Then, when the time for our harvest is right, and our fruit is ripe for the taking, we feel the knife as each bunch of grapes is removed, or the swing of the scythe as we are cut like wheat. Only in this way will we find our fruit adorning His table, and will we hear him express His eternal pleasure in us as He eventually seats us there with Him.
“and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”
Luke 22:29-30 ESV
This is the ultimate answer to our question “Why me Lord?” when trouble and suffering comes to us, and in yielding to His hand where we will find eternity which is to be in His presence. In this way we will rejoice in all hardship, and praise Him in every storm.
Prayer:
Father thank you for taking every hardship, and all the times in which suffering befalls us in the world, and then by your constant attention and pruning to make it work together for our good. Help us Lord to see you in every tribulation, and not to complain as you prepare us, and make us able to sustain the fruit we will bear for you. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who finds your pleasure among us in the cool of every evening. Praised be your name for every withered branch that you remove from us, and for each carefully administered cut that brings new growth. Merciful are you who tends to us throughout our lives, and then gathers us up to be with you forevermore in joyous praise and worship. Wash us in the blood of Jesus, and make us pure, and without sin just as He is without sin. See Hid image in us as we are transformed by our faith. Call us worthy, announce us as your children, and let the fruit of our lives please, and glorify, you always.
“By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”
John 15:8-11 ESV
“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places. To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.”
Habakkuk 3:17-19 ESV
Rich Forbes