Pruning the Vine | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 26, 1863

Pruning the Vine.

"I am the vine, ye are the branches." John xv, 5.

Gotthold visiting a person who was in deep affliction and sorrow, was told by the family that he was in the garden. Thither he followed, and found him employed in clearing a vine of its superfluous leaves. After a friendly salute, he inquired what he was doing. "I find," was the reply, "that, owing to the abundant rain, this vine is over grown with wood and leaves, which prevents the sun from reaching and ripening the grapes. I am therefore pruning part of them away, that it may bring its fruit to maturity." Gotthold rejoined: and do you find by this operation the vine resists and opposes you? If not, why are you displeased that a gracious God should do to you what your vine must not be displeased that you do to it? You prune off the superfluous foliage in order that it may bear the better fruit; and God takes away your temporal blessings and earthly comforts, in order that faith may produce its noble fruits of love, humility, patience, hope, and prayer, and these larger, and fairer, and sweeter than before. Let them talk as they please. When a man has a superfluity of all things, and is a total stranger to the cross, the Sun of righteousness, with its gracious rays, can scarcely reach the heart; and hence his Christianity usually bears only the harsh and acrid fruits of hypocrisy, pride, unkindness, and implacability. Let God, therefore, do with you as he will; he will do you no harm. You are now stripping the vine of its leaves; in the spring you hoed it, planted layers, pruned the suckers, and bound the branches. My friend, you are yourself a branch on the spiritual Vine which is the Lord Jesus. God is the dresser, and he well knows that, without his grace and care, he can look for no good at your hands.

This is the reason why he employs contempt to lay you to the earth, trials to prune, affliction to restrain, and poverty to strip you of your leaves. He intends it all to make his grace sweeter to you, and your heart sweeter to him.

O my God, withdraw not from me thy care, otherwise I shall grow wild and corrupt. Prune, bind and strip me as thou wilt; my comfort shall be, that thou canst never mean it for evil.—Ladies' Repository.