What It Takes to Thrive
In both gardening and spiritual terms, planting and harvesting are exciting seasons. Planting is the start of an adventure, and harvesting is the product of hard work. It’s easy to celebrate new beginnings and hard-earned completions—but one thing that’s not as much fun?
The pruning process.
Who wants to acknowledge what’s dead and unproductive in their lives? Who wants to trim back what’s already blooming—leaving you smaller, awkward, and feeling extra weak?
But pruning is exactly what we need to keep producing fruit.
“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.”
John 15:2 NIV
Jesus mentions two separate actions in this process—cutting off what’s dead and pruning fruit.
Cutting out what’s dead makes sense. It’s extra weight, it’s unproductive, it’s blocking sunlight, and it’s stealing good energy from branches that could thrive. But without proper context, pruning fruit feels backwards.
However, the purpose of pruning isn’t to disable something, but to revitalize it.
If a branch is weak or diseased, it could not only damage itself, but the surrounding trees as well. Without pruning, both the tree and the life surrounding it can never reach full potential.
Pruning creates room for more growth.
Pruning stimulates production.
Pruning keeps the plant or person strong.
God is a good Gardener. He wouldn’t be a good Gardener if He left you to yourself—overgrown, ineffective, and full of dysfunction. But He cares for those He loves. He cuts off what’s dead for your benefit. He lovingly trims back ineffective things in your life to make way for more fruit.
You can trust God with your life because He cares about who you are and who you can become.
So what “dead branches” are you dragging around? Is it possible that God is pruning you for future growth? Take a few moments and talk to God about any areas in your life that you recognize need to change.
The Best News
Have you ever done something significant, but someone else stole your praise? You served behind the scenes, voiced an important idea, or crafted something wonderful—but somebody else swept in and demanded full credit?
It’s not exactly the same (because we’re not nearly as awesome as Him), but we must be cautious not to steal credit from God.
The apostle Paul, writing from a Roman prison, said:
“God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.”
Ephesians 2:8-9 NLT
On a foundational level, we wouldn’t even be here without our Creator and Sustainer.
We wouldn’t exist without the universe and body in which we live—a universe and body that we did not make ourselves. We wouldn’t be able to breathe without the oxygen in our lungs or the oxygen that hovers right above our planet. We wouldn’t think or see or ...