| The Ministry of Comfort |
Chapter 3 |
Page 4 |
Take the process of pruning – the figure which our Lord Himself uses. The husbandman prunes the branches, but not without wise purpose. The Master’s words, referring to this process in spiritual husbandry, are rich in their comfort for those on whom the knife is doing its painful work.
For one thing, we are told that the Father is the husbandman. We know that our Father loves us and would never do anything unloving or hurtful. We know that He is infinitely wise, that He looks far on in our life, planning the largest and the best good for us, not for today only, but for all the future, and that what He does is certainly the best that could be devised. In every time of sharp pruning, when the knife cuts deep and the pain is sore, it is an unspeakable comfort to read, “My Father is the husbandman.”
Another inspiring thought in all such experience is that it is the fruitful branch which the Father prunes. Sometimes good people say when they are led through great trials, “Surely God does not love me, or He would not so sorely afflict me.” But it takes away all this distressing though about our trouble to read the Master’s words, “Every branch that beareth fruit He cleanseth it.” It is not punishment to which we are subjected, but pruning, and it is because we are fruitful that we are pruned.
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