Pruning is an important part of having a healthy garden. Sometimes a part of a plant gets diseased or a branch dies and starts to rot. It’s important for the overall health of the plant to cut away those parts so that the rest of the healthy plant doesn’t become infected. However, sometimes pruning involves cutting away parts of the plant that seem to have nothing wrong them. Why would a gardener interfere with a plant that is producing fruit? Pruning is stressful to a plant (yes, plants can get stressed just like people). So why stress out a plant that is doing what you want it to do?
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 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 15:1-2)
When the roots of a plant pull nutrients and water up from the soil and push them up into the plant, those nutrients will go to wherever the plant is growing. If it is growing fruit, the nutrients will go to make the fruit bigger. If there is a new branch forming, the nutrients will go to it. And just because there are two things going on, the roots don’t provide twice the nutrients. Instead, the fruit and the new branch compete for the nutrients, often making the fruit smaller than what it should be.
Tomato plants are notorious for this. As they grow, little side shoots form all up and down the main stem that most gardeners call “suckers.” There’s nothing wrong with a sucker except that they take water and nutrients away from the tomatoes that are growing. That’s why many gardeners pluck these little side growths off when they see them; not because they are diseased or rotten, but because they take away from the fruit.
Are we focused on producing fruit for Christ? If so, what things need to be pruned from our lives? It’s easy to recognize harmful things that need to be removed: the sin that brings disease to lives. But are there things that we indulge in that are not in-and-of themselves bad, but that are taking nutrients (time, energy, resources) away from producing the fruit that God is looking for? If so it’s a sucker and God may be looking to prune it.
May you take a good look at your life and find what ‘not-bad’ things are lessening the fruit that you could be producing.