Kiss the Wave by Dave Furman

Author:Dave Furman [Furman, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012000/REL012120/REL012010
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2018-01-15T16:00:00+00:00

8

The Waves Have a Glorious Purpose

When our church first got started, I used to work out of a room at our home. As I prepared my sermons, I would often look out my window and be motivated by the technological beauty of massive jumbo jets landing at the nearby airport and the simple elegance of the bougainvillea flowers in our garden.

One day I looked out the window and saw the gardener chopping up my beloved bougainvillea bushes. Branches flew everywhere until all the leaves and most of the branches were in a pile surrounding him. The first thought that came to my mind was that we had hired the worst gardener in all of history. I found Gloria and said, “Have you seen what the gardener is doing? He is destroying everything!” It upset me that all the beautiful branches and piles of flowers lay wilting on the ground. It looked as though the gardener had murdered our beautiful bushes.

Obviously, I never took Gardening 101. To the ignorant eye this butcher of the bushes was killing my flowers, but to the knowing eye he was a wise vinedresser. He knew that the life of the bush actually increases with pruning. Weeks later, my sermon preparation was enriched by the view of those once barren branches holding an abundance of beautiful flowers.

Jesus used this analogy when he talked about growth in the Christian life (John 15). He said that spiritual growth often involves a form of suffering. Our goal as followers of Christ should be that we love Jesus more as a result of our pain. As believers, we need to learn to kiss the wave of our trials and embrace God in our suffering because God is working in our hearts to make us more like Christ.

Spiritual Pruning

Before Jesus went to the cross, he gave a final sermon of instruction to his disciples. The sermon is called the Upper Room Discourse, and we find it in John 15. Right in the middle, Jesus uses a gardening metaphor to describe the importance of growing spiritually and drawing strength from him—the true Vine.

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:1–5)

Jesus was telling the disciples and all Christians that he is setting them apart for a lifestyle of bearing fruit. The branches alone don’t produce fruit; fruit is the overflow of life that flows from the vine. The branch has no source of life in itself.

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