Pastor Mark Driscoll via The Seattle Times:
The barren apple tree in my front yard has become one of the most powerful metaphors God has ever delivered to me.
The tree had not been pruned for dozens of years and was so overburdened that its branches had drooped to the ground, producing but a few small sour apples. A friend recently pruned the tree so severely that the branches became stubs with no green leaves left at all. He explained that the tree, while traumatized, would again blossom and bear much sweet fruit.
His words reminded me of one of Jesus’ parables about gardening and life. Jesus said that people, like trees, grow wild and, without pruning, become sick and unproductive. God is the gardener who prunes us back into health and fruitfulness.
The shears in God’s hands include failure, hardship, discipline, suffering and illness, which can leave us in such shock and pain that we are unable to see ahead to better times. Sometimes the pruning simply hurts like hell, and keeping a positive outlook in the face of such trauma can seem hollow and trite.
Read the good news.
