The Sparkle of a Diamond: The Cut
On the rare occasion that I have shopped for a diamond I had to be educated on the meaning of the cut. Diamonds are described by words like brilliance, fire, and sparkle. To get the highest marks the diamond is dependent on the quality of the cut. The cut is measured from poor to excellent as it defines the diamond's proportions and ability to reflect light. What a powerful metaphor for Christ’s work in the life of the disciple. He cuts us, prunes us, so that we may better reflect His light.
John 15:2 must be the classic verse on this process:
“…every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it [cuts] so that it may bear more fruit.”
Every disciple loved and bought by the blood of the Savior will be cut, without apology and without our control lest we produce nothing but leaves and no fruit. Leaves look good, look like life, and fill the space, but the goal of the Savior is fruit. And without cutting, without pruning, there is no fruit. Sometimes I must admit I wish it wasn’t so.
From our perspective, the cutting process seems drastic. It can be painful and embarrassing, so much so that we may be tempted to blame it on other people or the devil or bad luck. It seems to take away the new growth that is soft and vulnerable, growth that we would choose to protect.
The cutting can look like failure to us. The glory of what our ministry was producing is stripped away. The benefit of this difficult season is not revealed to us immediately and we may become discouraged or angry. It seems to make no sense to stop something that was working, making progress, and touching lives with the Word.
The cutting will take you to a place of real surrender. You acknowledge that you don’t get it, you don’t see the whole picture, and you throw yourself on His wisdom, love, and mercy to guide you in this difficult period.
The cutting makes us reconsider what success looks like in our life, our work, and our ministry. As a pastor, I am easily tempted to measure my fruitfulness by attendance, applause, and giving. These shallow leaves can cover for the lack of real fruit being born in my disciple-making ministry. Eugene Peterson reminded us that crowds are as powerful a seduction as money and sex for the pastor. So I should not be surprised that the Savior comes into my life and ministry and cuts something away.
Have we not seen this in the life of the great men and women of God through the ages? Moses is seriously cut, so deep that he is almost unrecoverable from his broken confidence and gifting.
David is cut down just as his fame is reaching epic proportions with Goliath’s defeat.
Naomi and Ruth find themselves as widows in a strange land with future prospects dim at best.
The one I go to again and again is Paul. So fruitful, so powerful, so gifted! And so regularly cut with the sharp instrument of God’s grace to refine and release more of the light of Christ.
In the midst of this cutting, pruning, season I am thrown back on the foundational truths of the character of my God. He is love, all His motives and actions are rooted in His best for me. He does not want me to quit, to give in to bitterness and defeat, but to keep trusting Him in this time of loss. It will not make sense to us because our view of the whole story is so limited, so I cry out to Him to give me grace to not despair. As the Psalmist declared through his tears, “I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”
He will prune me until I can say with integrity, “I have counted all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…” (Phil. 3:8)
