“I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman... Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.”
The Vine
Jesus describes pruning here as something that happens specifically to fruitful branches, not only unfruitful ones. This corrects a common assumption that pain or cutting in a relationship signals failure. According to this image, pruning is what a good, attentive husbandman does precisely to branches that are already bearing fruit, in order to produce more.
This second movement of the book turns from the planting of the first ten days toward the harder, more uncomfortable work pruning requires. A vineyard left entirely unpruned does not simply continue producing more and more fruit indefinitely. It grows wild, overgrown, its energy scattered across too much unproductive growth, producing less rather than more over time.
Applied to marriage, this suggests that the conflict, correction, and difficult conversations this movement will address are not necessarily evidence something has gone wrong. They may be the husbandman’s own pruning, uncomfortable in the moment, aimed specifically at more fruit, not less, in the relationship’s future.
Whatever cutting your marriage is currently undergoing, some hard conversation, some painful correction, some conflict that feels like loss rather than growth, consider today whether this might be pruning rather than failure, the husbandman’s own hand, aimed at more fruit still to come.
Tend the Vine
- Name one current source of conflict or discomfort in your marriage.
- Consider whether this might be pruning aimed at more fruit, not evidence of failure.
- Ask the husbandman today what this specific pruning might be producing.
Prayer
Lord, some cutting is happening in our marriage right now. Let me trust it as your pruning, aimed at more fruit, not evidence that something has failed. Amen.
Carry this today
Pruning happens to fruitful branches. It is not always failure.