The Mirror of the Word and other works by C.E. White can be purchased on her website, cewhitebooks.com or on Amazon.

“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.”

—John 15:1–2

Christ is always working to cut away any branch in us that does not bear fruit.

Like a surgeon performing a procedure to heal us, God is not after our comfort but our spiritual health. The cutting hurts, but it will make us increasingly more like him so that we bear more of his fruit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self–control.

If some hardship comes upon us and we feel like our right arm has been chopped off, we may ask ourselves if that thing was bringing out the fruits of the Spirit in us or if it was bringing about apathy, callousness, anger, or anxiety.

Not all loss is a pruning for the purpose of correction—we can see that most clearly in Job where it was an attack of the enemy—but any time the Lord prunes, there are two purposes: to take off what is not profitable and to bring about what is better.

The first result is often that we feel we’ve been butchered. Where before we might’ve seemed manicured and presentable with lots of green, we may now appear nearly dead—branches cut off on all sides and most of our leaves gone—misshapen and ugly.

Trust that the Lord is doing surgery—not murder—with his knife. The cut branches were a cancer robbing our fruit–producing limbs of what they needed to thrive.

It’s hard to trust him in the pruning, but it’s always for our good and his glory.

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