Trusting the Gardener

I stood looking at the giant pile of healthy branches I had just pruned off my tomatoes. There were a lot more than I imagined there would be. I started to doubt myself and wonder if all that was really necessary.

The week prior, I was removing several blight-infected branches. Blight is a fungal (or bacterial) infection that is usually caused by the leaves staying too damp in the summer heat. The first signs of blight proved that my tomato plants were overcrowded. Merely removing the suckers, like I had been doing all season, wasn’t enough. My oldest daughter tried to warn me. The sun and the wind didn’t have the space needed to do their job. And so I cut off every yellow, pale, and spotted leaf and branch there was. When I was done, I knew I needed to go back in and take care of the overcrowding so that the blight wouldn’t come back.

Removing infected branches last week made sense. Removing suckers all season made sense. But removing the green leaves and branches that made my tomato plants look healthy and full didn’t feel right. It was scary. There were tiny fruit on some of those branches sitting in my giant pile. I resolved to leave it alone and see what would happen.

In the following days and weeks, I was delighted at how much the plants were thriving. The places where I cut branches were healing nicely. The plants kept getting taller, and the fruit that remained continued to get fuller. The blight was virtually gone and hadn’t returned.

When I consider the lesson learned from this and look at it through a spiritual lens, I can’t help but trust God even more in my own life. The Father is the Gardener. Messiah is the vine. We are the branches (John 15). God cuts off what is not bearing fruit (the diseased and unfruitful parts) to protect the whole plant. He also prunes the branches that are already bearing fruit, thinning even the healthy growth so they can become even more fruitful. He knows that thinning branches will allow the sunlight to reach more places and that the wind (Spirit) will move more freely. Even when we don’t understand why one branch remains and another doesn’t, we have to trust that He knows what He is doing.

I don’t like watching relationships fade or seasons that seemed healthy and fruitful come to an end. Yet God taught me this season that His pruning is never careless. Whether He is removing what is already diseased or carefully pruning what still looks full of life, His purpose is the same: more light, freer movement of His Spirit, and greater fruit in the end. So I choose to abide in the Vine and trust the Gardener.

“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 bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.” -Jesus (John 15:1-2