Beautifully Refined: Growing in Christ Day by Dayনমুনা

Sometimes we need to trim something dead from our life in order to grow and thrive.

My hair was a frazzled mess of split ends, and I could barely get a comb through it after my showers. Having gone six months without a haircut, it also wouldn’t hold any style besides a French braid or a ponytail—it was time for a trim.

With one snip, my scalp felt free again! I hadn’t realized how dragged-down my head felt. Suddenly, my headaches were gone. My meager efforts with a curling wand worked again, and the length felt fresh and swingy as I strode through the grocery store. I’d needed that haircut.

Sometimes, we need a trim in other areas of our life, too. That toxic office friendship that thrives on gossip and snark. That romantic relationship not rooted in the Lord. That job, that pulls us farther and farther from our ministry goals. 

That’s what I think of when I read Jesus’s words to His disciples right before He went to the cross. Jesus told His friends that the Gardener, God the Father, cuts off those things that don’t bear fruit in order to increase our fruitfulness. 

I’m no gardener, but I know pruning a bush will make it healthier and able to grow more flowers or fruit—just like a fresh haircut will get rid of my split ends and make me look better.

Sometimes it’s necessary for God to “prune,” or "cut-away," certain aspects of our life to steer us back on track. It might feel awful at the time. Maybe we’d set our sights on marrying that man, and now our heart is broken. Maybe getting laid off from our job caused some short-term financial troubles or insecurity.

But eventually, we see the full perspective, and God’s hand in it. We see how that breakup eventually led us to a healthier relationship, or how that lost job led us to our new, far more fulfilling one that serves a better purpose for God.

But the pruned branch can only bear new and better fruit if it’s connected to the vine. As Jesus said, “If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing” (v. 5).

Staying connected to Jesus produces fruit. If this is a season of pruning in your life—if God is bringing about an end to one thing in order to birth or nourish something else—then do your best to stay in connection with Him.

You can be certain He’ll use the situation to produce better fruit than you could ever imagine.

And that’s even better than a fresh haircut.

~Jessica Brodie