The Pain of Pruning

We often see Jesus using agricultural words like prune, sow, and chaff when referring to spiritual growth and maturity. I may have the “brownest” thumb, as I seem to be able to kill every plant I come in contact with, but even I assumed that I knew what these words meant.

But one day, a show presented by OSU’s Oklahoma Gardening department caught my attention. In the TV segment the host is pruning a citrus tree for optimal fruit growth. The first year she bought a small, thin nectarine tree to plant. It was about 4 feet in height and to begin the pruning she cuts the tree essentially in half: back to only a small 18-inch stem. It was almost painful to watch. That tree lost everything. All of its branches gone in just a second.

Year two was not much better. The host reintroduces the tree, now about 5 feet in height with several branches growing out of its trunk. She points out the “wound,” which remains to this day, indicating the place it was pruned the year before. She then proceeds to prune for year two: cutting away all but four branches that are growing at the optimal angle and show potential for fruit bearing.

This is pruning. Not the gentle removal of dead leaves I was imagining. A near-violent act of removing whole parts of this tree that would not advance the goal of fruit production. “Poor tree,” I thought to myself.

Now, obviously, this is not at all painful for the tree. It’s a tree! But I am immediately reminded of the fact that I too am being pruned, and an understanding of what that looks like begins to form. It’s painful. It’s hard. There’s suffering. There’s loss.

Sinful parts of our lives are not equivalent to dead leaves. When I have my way, sin runs rampant. It is nurtured, watered, and well cared for. It grows just as those perfectly healthy branches grow. But I cannot be who I am meant to be if these are allowed to continue growing. So, the Lord, in his love for me and his desire for me to be more like his son, “prunes” me. And it hurts. “For those whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives” (Heb 12:6). He scourges. That conveys more accurately what pruning actually feels like.

I can look back on many times in my life that the Lord has pruned me, as I am sure most Christians can. He pruned me through the suicide attempt and drug addiction of my sister. That was his preparation for me to come to him. He cut my reliance on myself and my controlling nature back to the stem by allowing for a difficult situation that I could have absolutely no control over. He pruned away my impatience by postponing my wedding. He pruned away my selfishness through marriage and a baby. He pruned away many sinful tendencies while waiting almost a year for my husband to be with our family again.

None of these stories are pleasant. None of them are ones that I recount in joy. They were painful life events that the Lord used for my good. And it’s not over. He will continue to prune my life so that I might produce the most fruit possible while here on earth. It’s the heart of the gospel: I am no longer mine but belong to the one who bought me by his blood.

Thankfully, I can look forward to the day that I will no longer need this painful pruning. As difficult as it is and has been, I can look forward to a day when I will be resurrected with him perfectly. “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen in temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor 4:17-18).