It’s pruning time!
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Recently I took part in a YWAM Staff Training Week in England. The theme was based around John 15 (The Vine and the Branches). Throughout the week we talked about vines which need to be pruned – we’d started on the first day by asking God what fruit He’d like to see us individually bearing. We wrote it onto paper cut-outs which resembled fruit and hung them onto a symbolic tree at the front of the meeting room.
This activity took me quite a long while as I like to dig deep in order to get more understanding. I asked myself “What are the fruits within a person” and was reminded of Matthew 7 v 20 which tells us that just as we can identify a tree by its’ fruit, so we can identify a person by their actions. OUCH! I asked myself “What kind of actions am I identified by and what kind of attitudes do I want to be known for?”
Galatians 5 v 22 & 23 tell us that if we live by Gods’ spirit we are to hate evil and be loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful and gentle. So I wrote on my fruit that I desire to be joyful and good, willing to serve others and hospitable.
There’s a list of gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 which resembles the fruit which we bear in our lives – I chose “faith” and “producing faith” in others as a gift that I aspire to. In addition I wrote “prophecy” which is the ability to strengthen, encourage and comfort others. (Revelation 22 v 2 states that the Tree of Life, which is in Heaven, is very fruitful as it bears a fresh crop every month).
Naturally, all of my written words on the symbolic fruit won’t count for much if they don’t produce activity in my life. I therefore added some ambitious phrases about all I want to do for Him in the future. It felt like Christmas as together we decorated the tree with our fruit! We ended the first evening in a festive mood.
However, the following morning reality hit home as we heard that people – just like trees -need certain conditions in order to bear good fruit. John 15 v 4 reminds us that our personal fruitfulness is a result of remaining, enduring, abiding, persevering faith in Christ. A temporary or fleeting relationship with Him will cause us to be unproductive. We all watched in horror as Tom Bloomer took his shears, pruned the branches and our fruit fell tumbling to the ground.
Tom had wanted to show us what happens to fruitful trees. God is committed to developing fruitfulness in each of us. Tom reassured us that pruning is good for us, and if it’s done properly it makes us more fruitful.
John 15 v 1 says that Father God is the “husbandman” – the one who does the pruning. I drifted off into memories of past pruning’s which didn’t go so well – I accept that God prunes perfectly in order to let the maximum light reach the branches but I wondered about the shears which are sometimes used….
These shears are like the people which God allows to bring discipline into our lives. When pruning shears are sharpened it only takes one attempt to cut off a branch; if they’re blunt then it can take several goes to hack it off. I asked myself if this is similar to us as Christians? If someone has been sharpened through their faith in God and knowledge of His word we could expect their pruning of others to be quick, to cause little pain and to bear much fruit. We all know how it feels to be pruned by someone who is “blunt”!
Our desire in YWAM Associates is to encourage those who’ve served YWAM to bloom in the places where God has planted them now. That category of former YWAMers possibly includes you! Why not consider coming back to join YWAM again for a week at in inTouch Camp in this our Golden Jubilee Year as a Mission? We’re offering camps in six locations in Europe between the end of May and the end of August: Hurlach, Bavaria in Germany; Borgen in The Norwegian Land of the Midnight Sun; Falun, Sweden; Skjærgårdsheimen in Southern Norway; Le Gault la Forêt in Champagne, France and the Jura Mountains of Switzerland.
May each of us stay spiritually sharp, bearing good fruit daily and being willing to be pruned as we remain in Him,
Yours, Shirley.
