A Growth Mindset

We were reading through one of my favorite passages of the Bible the other day in church.

“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more…”

 I’ve always enjoyed the imagery used in John 15, but I definitely came to appreciate it more when we were living overseas in the jungle. In the tropics, with a year-round growing season, I was able to witness these pruning principles play out much easier than I ever had living in the temperate climate of the Northeast.

One tree in particular, a little guava that I planted next to my house, made this passage come to life for me in a special way. A villager friend of mine brought me the sapling as a gift – just a little twig, with its root ball wrapped up in a big jungle leaf.

I planted it next to my house, where I would be able to look after it easily (since the jungle is a brutal place to try to grow anything). I added compost around its base and even flew in some fertilizer to help supplement the horrible soil that it was growing in. After a couple of years, it actually started to look like a small tree!

Throughout that time of my guava’s growth, as I was engaged in my language and culture study with the people we were living with, I realized that the concept of pruning and maintaining trees was not one that these folks utilized. Once a native fella’ planted a tree, he might keep the area around it clear of other foliage, but the growth and shape of the tree itself was left entirely up to nature. My questions of how to best encourage my guava’s growth and fruit production were met with dismissive shrugs by my jungle peers.

 “Try to keep kids from breaking all the branches off it” was the closest thing to advice that I was able to elicit.

This “natural” approach to tree-tending might sound like a good idea to the uninitiated, but it comes with some undesirable consequences. When left to its own devices, a guava1Most fruit trees are like this. will put most of its energy into growing the tree vertically, not producing fruit. This means that a “naturally growing” guava will (a) not produce much fruit, and (b) produce the little amount of fruit that it does make high in the air and out of reach.

Because I wanted my guava to produce lots of fruit, and I wanted that fruit to be easily accessible to me and my family, my intervention in its growth process proved necessary. I wanted what was best for my tree, but my little guava seemed to have a will of its own. And, as it happened, most of the energy that my guava expended was detrimental to its successful fruit production.

Every few weeks, I would take some time in the evening to tend to my little tree. I would go out with my shears, assess the growth that had taken place, contrast it with the vision I had cast for my tree, and commence cutting. In the end, the ground would be littered with branches, most of them small, some of them quite large. Two things really stood out to me each time I engaged in this work:

1. It was obvious to me that if you were to ask my guava for ITS opinion of the work I was doing, it would undoubtedly respond with, “He’s hurting me! He’s abusing me! He’s destroying all my hard work! He’s causing needless suffering in my life!”

2. Though I knew that in the big picture scheme of things I was helping my guava reach its full potential, there was still a bit of sadness for me in the process. Every snip and cut I made shone a light on the wasted efforts and energies of my tree. I would think, “This is the 4^th time you’ve tried to grow a branch in this spot under your shade canopy, where it will never see sun and will wither and die. Why do you insist on putting so much energy into pointless endeavors? Why are you so intent on pursuing growth that isn’t good for you?”2I recognize that it is silly to try to reason with a plant, but such personification is one of the potential side-effects of living so remotely for so long.

I would cut off diseased branches that were covered with fungus, but which the tree still seemed to think it could make use of. I would trim out branches that were growing in an intersecting path with other branches, which would have caused overcrowding and conflict for sunlight down the road (thus stunting the growth of BOTH branches). I would cut off any vertical growth, because I wanted accessible, low-hanging fruit – fruit that would be useful. And I would thin out branches to ensure that all the remaining leaves were able to receive adequate sunlight.

At the end of each pruning session, my guava had much less mass than it had previously. And yet, over time, through this process of selectively taking away, the tree became a much greater version of itself. In fact, it ended up surpassing every other guava tree in the village with its fruit production, to the point that several village friends made comments about it.

 “Wow, that’s a really nice guava. It has so much fruit on it all the time! And it is so short and wide that all the fruit is easy to pick!”

That little tree brought me so much joy as it grew and blossomed and provided fresh fruit for my family,3The jungle is not the cornucopia of edible delights that modern media often makes it out to be. Fresh fruit was hard to come by in our jungle swamp. but as shapely and picturesque as it became, it always required some tweaking and adjusting. It was always in need of a knowing hand to guide its growth and encourage (and discourage) its development in different areas.

There is nothing better for a fruit tree than to grow under the care of an attentive gardener – someone who understands its true potential, knows what is best for it, and is willing to invest time and energy into its proper development.

Followers of Jesus have this same relationship guaranteed to them with the Father: Those who are connected to his son will receive the tender care of a wise gardener. This nurturing may be painful in the moment, may require loss, may seem counter-productive to our personal plans and goals, but it is for our growth and our well-being.

As we look to Christ as our source of life, we will be grown and shaped into people that not only bring joy to the Father by taking on the shape he has envisioned for us, but will also be a blessing to the lives of those around us.

What a joy there is in knowing that when it seems that our efforts are being hindered, or we are experiencing “needless loss” it is often the result of a loving God who is wanting to guide us along a better path, one that will produce MORE fruit in our lives than the growth we were trying to produce in our own way!