The good vine dresser

John 15:1-8
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

Several years ago, my wife received a small Yellow Texas rose bush. I had never tended a rose bush and knew nothing of how to care for it. Luckily it knew what to do and thrived in its little pot in the backyard where I left it - the little bush bloomed its heart out all summer, blessing us with vibrant flowers of varying shades of yellow. At the end of summer I was thankful for the beauty the small bush provided, but assumed it would die in the winter and that would be the end of our Yellow Texas rose.

But, maybe by the shear coincidence that we live in Texas, the bush came back to life the very next spring: a wee bit bigger and just as prolific in its flower show. So at the end of the summer I decided to make the bush a permanent member of our backyard by removing her from her disposable black pot in which she was delivered and planted her prominently in a section I hoped she would enjoy. Honestly, I believed that the transplant would shock her system and that the new location would not provide the appropriate amount of sun and shade and that I was sentencing her to a withering scorched death. But again, to my delight, the Yellow Texas rose bush flourished in her new home, growing a bit larger and bearing an even more prolific amount of flowers.

She had had suffered through my bumblings as a gardener, and so I felt it my duty to study up on how to care for a rose bush. I was was agast when I read over and over again that to best tend a rose bush one should trim it back to next to nothing at the end of the growing season. Somehow my little Yellow Texas rose had done just fine without the drastic surgery encouraged by the literature I was finding, but there was this constant nagging in the back of my mind that maybe she would thrive even better if I were to prune her back as was suggested by the myriad master gardeners. So with utter confidence that I was murdering my sweet Yellow Texas rose, in the cool of October I cut her back to nothing but five spindly twigs protruding from the earth - nude of any leaves or branches.

All winter long I looked at my Yellow Texas rose bush and was ashamed of what I had done - I chastised myself for taking on faith the advice of these unknown so-called experts. Watching the Charlie Brown Christmas special that year, I was condemned that Charlie Brown's christmas tree was a thriving specimen of life compared to the butchered Yellow Texas rose bush that sat silently in my backyard. It was in early spring, however, that my self abuse was proved for not. For not only did my little Yellow Texas rose bush begin to push forth vibrant green buds at the first sign of warming weather, but by late May she was at least three times larger than she had been the year before! Throughout the summer she produced flowers of every shade of yellow imaginable and more! What an incredible transformation my little Yellow Texas rose went through - in fact she was no longer little, but truly a woman among rose bushes. In fact, she has established herself as queen of the backyard (at least in my mind).

So now, as August is coming to a close and summer along with it, I know that in the not too distant future the shears will come out and my Yellow Texas Queen will undergo a severe haircut, but this year I will take my cue from her and I will not flinch an inch as I clip her bare of all her garments leaving her nude and exposed.

I am excited about what God is doing in my life and the community of friends and family He has gathered around me. I am faithful that He is a good vine dresser and that His pruning is always for our good; I am also faithful that I, like the literal vine, will grow bolder in my faith and will not flinch when the good vine dresser's shears are used to trim me back. I will not be condemned when the shears come to do their work: that the vine needs to be pruned is not a fault of the vine but simply a reality of healthy growth!

To test is to persevere

James 1:2-3 Count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.

Is there a deep promise in these two passages, or is James stating a philosophical implication? Let's break down some of the language first.

Trials - as I was using this word yesterday, I took it to mean that which is opposed to my will. According to Strong's definition, the Greek word used by James (peirasmos) has to do with trial of man's fidelity, integrity, virtue, constancy: an enticement or invitation to sin. As I have come to see sin, it is to miss the way, to go wrong or off course. And who is it that sets the course - it is God our perfect creator of course who knows the perfect course for our life. So, if we are to go off course it is because we are not aligned to God's will and are relying too heavily on our own understanding and will. Is my use and understanding of trial in line with the above description? Let's take it in two parts:

1. If we are to find the enticement from trial in line with our will, then God's will is in opposition to our will, and hence we find ourself in a position in which our will is being opposed by God's. So yes, we may find the trial or temptation is not in conflict with our will, but our will is being opposed by God.
2. Otherwise, we find that the enticement from trial is in opposition with our will.

Therefore, in either situation, the trial invites a situation in which our will is challenged and finds itself in opposition.

James states that the trials are a testing of our faith. So what then is faith? Again, according to Strong's definition, the Greek word used by James (pistis) has to do with:

• A conviction of the truth
• The conviction that God exists and is the creator and ruler of all things.
• The conviction that Jesus is the Messiah, through whom we obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom of God.

It is clearly the first conviction I am using in my definition of trials - the conviction that God is the ruler of all things and that trials are oppositions to my will which is either in line with God's will because of faith (pistis) or in opposition with God's will and ideally by faith I will lay down my will for that of the Father's.

Finally, the promise, by James, is that trials or testing of faith produces patience which can mean: steadfastness, constancy, and endurance. So to my original question - is this a promise or an implication or both? What I see is that the more we align our will with God's, the more our will will be strengthened and we will be more resolved to align our will with God's next time. However, I see the another truth lurking here as well: the more we align our will in opposition to God's, the more our will will be strengthened and we will be more resolved to adhere to our own internal will in subsequent situations. 

So here is how I see it,  if we are convicted that God is perfect and has the perfect path for our life, then we have faith and through trials this conviction is tested and when we choose to align our will with that of the Father's then our faith (our conviction) is made stronger because we have been forced again to declare our allegiance to God and His sovereignty. However, if we are not convicted that God exists let alone has a perfect path for our life, then when trials arise they will be trials of our faith in our own good understanding of what is good for the self - and by relying on ourselves for guidance we are also declaring our allegiance to self and our sovereignty. In either case, faith is tested and patience in our faith produced.  

Count it all Joy

Count it all joy when you fall into various trials. (James 1:2 )

Joy = Chara (Greek) from Chairos: to rejoice, to take pleasure in.

From our perspective how are we to know what is TRULY to our benefit and what is to our deficit? We are unable to stay neutral in our circumstances - we are unable overcome the intimate proximity of our self to any personal situation - the simple fact that we are the central character in our own narrative demands a personal response to life whenever it comes into conflict with our own personal will and desire. But again, or myopic perspective abuses us of the ability of objective discernment and hence our options are few:

1. Despite our lack of true perspective,  we rail against the enemy of our will , relying on our inflated value of our personal perspective as the guide to our joy;
2. Succomb to the will of opposition, believing that our personal perspective is blind to the greater drama in which we live and that the path of opposition if futile and will lead only to the suppression of joy;
3. Stand in faith that our will, our dreams, our desires, our self has been shaped and molded by the Creator not necessarily so that our will may be fulfilled, but  that through the struggle between the will of self and the will of opposition the self may become even more perfected.

We are not asked to succomb and lay down our will to opposition as mindless slaves; though, neither are we to elevate the will to the level of master or commander of fate. Instead, we are called to take joy in the struggle itself; we are to rejoice that the Father has taken interest in us and our positions and is developing in us perfection. In the end we may rally against or succumb to the oppositions and trials to our will, but it is our heart position that is of utmost importance; it is our heart that is eternal and of value to our Creator; it is the heart that loves God: All things work together for good to those  who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)