Jesus prunes those He loves. It's temporary pain for a lasting good. At Bible study tonight Denise Duke told a story of the Lemon Tree in California:
"A man had a lemon tree that produced nothing but tiny lemons that were not useful for anything. The tree was getting in the way of the mans' ability to mow his yard and so he decided to prune the tree just about all the way down. Nothing was left of this tree but the tiny trunk. However, after a season the tree began to grow and flourish. Much to the mans' chagrin, the tree was not a lemon tree, but rather a beautiful grapefruit tree."
The point of the story, is that God does this with us. Sometimes He needs to cut us down, almost to the point of nothingness in order to become what we were truly meant to be.
