Things have been going pretty sucky lately, so my mom sent me this podcast that she thought would "encourage" me. It was on just these four verses. Now, the first part where He's talking about the Father cutting off every branch that bears no fruit broke my heart for reasons that I won't go into, and my heart sort of got turned off to the second part that honestly was very encouraging for me. But throughout the day, God has been bringing it back to my head over and over, so now that I don't feel so wounded, I am able to consider it the way I ought to.
How often do you thank God for a broken heart? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that no one really thanks Him for that. I have a heart that has been ripped apart, torn up, thrown on the ground, stomped and spat on. So basically, I'm able to sympathize with people in that situation. No, we aren't running around saying, "Oh thank you God for this awful thing that has happened to me and this gut wrenching heart ache! PLEASE, send me more of this!" It just doesn't happen.
But maybe we should be a little more grateful. The bible says that God chastens the ones he loves. He "prunes" the good branches so that they will bear "even more fruit." There are many ways to prune a branch. When the bible was written, there was a process called pinching. How this was done was the vine dresser would take his thumb and finger and remove just the growing tip of the vigorous end of an unwanted shoot. By doing this, it wouldn't grow so rapidly and wouldn't be broken off in its weakness by the wind. Another way was a process called topping. This was when the vine dresser would remove a foot or two of a large branch which prevented its loss in the wind or its dissipation of strength as it became too large. Another process was called thinning which was when they would remove the flower or grape clusters from the branch. All these processes were so the branch was made clean and nothing was lost. Causing there to be much more fruit.
So putting this into spiritual and human terms, what does this mean? It means that every person who is saved, will receive spiritual pruning by the Father. God wants us to always be operating at a maximum "fruit-bearing" capacity. In order for this to happen, He must remove ANYTHING that would hinder our fruit bearing. He has to remove things from our lives every now and then, whether they're sins or other hindrances or just little things that attach themselves to us that prevent us from bearing spiritual fruit.
But pruning hurts. It has to be done with a knife. And sometimes that knife is really really REALLY painful. Sometimes God's pruning hurts so bad that we just can't imagine that God really knows what he's doing. Sometimes he prunes so much off of us all at once that it makes us feel like He's never going to get to anyone else. And it hurts. Good Lord, does it hurt. He can "prune" us in many different ways, whether it be sickness, loss of a job, gossip, the loss of loved ones, the end of a relationship that you never thought would end and you had placed all your hope in. But all of this is done in God's goodness. He does this because He cares whether we bear fruit or not. Hebrews 12:10 says, "For they verily for a few days, that is human fathers, chasten us after their own pleasure, but He for our profit that we might be partakers of His holiness."
Do you understand what that means? God chastens us, purges us, so that we can partake in His holiness. God adopts us into His family and treats us as sons or daughters and because of that love for us, He does what He knows is best for us and what will make us the best possible versions of ourselves that we could never be on our own.
So whenever things are going terribly, and all you want to do is throw in the towel and give up. Don't. If you are saved and you know you are, look at it and see it for what it is. It is the hand of the Father, working in your life because of His great love for you. He wants you to bear much fruit and to remain in Him. But you don't have to do it on your own. See? That's what this is all about. We are incapable of bearing fruit on our own, but God doesn't leave us to our own devices. He comes along and He "prunes" us and prepares us for the weight of all that we have to bear. He removes the things from our lives that hinder us from serving Him to our greatest ability. And for that we should be continually thankful.
So all of that was actually just the intro to this:
God has been purging my life. Big time. Basically, one thing has gone wrong after another after another after another. It's as if God was walking around "the True Vine" and realized that He had been missing my branch for years and had to make up for it by purging absolutely everything out of my life. Holy crap. It hurts.
But I noticed something yesterday. I had a super awesome day where I got to spend the entire day hanging out with a friend that I hadn't seen in a year, I got to help out in their store, got offered a job for the rest of the semester, and just got to talk to someone about everything that was going on and I knew that she actually cared. If things had been going amazingly, I would've just been like, "well that was nice!" and went along with my day. But things have been going horribly lately and I have never felt so alone. So when I got back from that day, I was so overwhelmed with thanksgiving that I was brought to my knees in tears just thanking God for the relief that He had given me from my misery. All because I spent the entire day with a friend.
That made me realize something. When things are going well, we grow complacent. We take friendships, conversations, jobs, productivity, and basically everything for granted. But when we are in the midst of the darkest hours of our lives and even getting out of bed feels like the most daunting task we've ever faced, spending a day feeling productive and with a friend is the most amazing relief.
I want to always be so grateful for a day like yesterday. Even if things are going amazingly and I'm happy and surrounded by friends and people who love me, I want to be so overwhelmed with gratitude. Every single time. I never want to take friendship or good conversations or just a day out with friends for granted again. Or during the summer when I'm working, I want to come home every day and realize, "Hey, it may not be my favorite thing in the world, but there are people out there looking for a job so they can make ends meet, and God gave me this job so that I can afford to go to Cambodia to serve Him," and be overwhelmed with love for Him and gratitude. If everything was good, nothing would be significant.
We take God's love for granted when we can feel the love of everyone else. But when we feel lonely, abandoned, and rejected by earthly men or even just friends, we can feel God's arms around us hugging us to Him. The best part is, God never really leaves us wondering why He removed something from our lives. He is always gracious enough to show us what we're, "missing out" on. Seeing as what we're missing out on was completely not God's will for us, we're not missing out on much because God's will is always significantly better.
So even though my heart is not in the place where I am able to say, "thank you God for removing that person from my life!" I know that because this person loved himself more than the Lord or me, they were not pursuing God's will at all, but their own, I would have been miserable if they continued to be in my life. Which sucks. I love this person with everything I've got. So that's not really a realization you want to have about someone you love that much. But God knows best, and He knew that since this person was not genuinely pursuing His will with all of their heart and they were trying to conform God's will into their own so that they wouldn't have to give up anything their earthly self enjoyed, my spiritual growth would be hindered if God hadn't removed this person from my life.
And it sucks. I don't want it to be that way. And I think God knew that I wouldn't be able to remove that person from my life on my own, so He allowed things to happen that broke my heart even more than the initial removal. But God is good and He knows what He's doing. So even though my heart is in a million pieces and I spend around 75% of my day in tears, I am able to look up to heaven and thank God for His chastening because it assures me of my place in the Family of God.
Also, my mind is a jumbled crazy mess so I think that's why God has shown me so many things in one fell swoop. 'cause He knows that's how my mind processes things.
Anyway, this is a picture from the awesome day I had yesterday. : )
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