Try, Fail, Change: Prune, Try Again and Grow

The CEO of IBM quoted Try, Fail, Change this morning.  I immediately thought of John 15.  It's no coincidence that God conveyed the example of Jesus as the True Vine through John.  Consider the following from John chapter 15:

1I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. 2Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. 3Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. 4Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. 5I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. 6If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. 7If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. 8Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. 9As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. 

If you consider yourself to be a branch, then imagine what's on a branch and what comes forth from a branch.  Branches are compelled to birth fruit of some kind.  Sometimes it's flowers, could be nuts, or literal and edible fruit, or it could just be leaves.  If you have watched a tree grow and bear fruit and if you have subsequently collected the fruit of the tree, there are some basic things that you learn to accept.  First you cannot take all of the fruit from a tree.  You cannot pick a tree totally dry of it's fruit or eventually it will fail to produce.  Second a tree must be properly pruned in order to harvest consistent and continual growth and to produce more fruit.  The fruit of each tree must be treated differently - not all trees are alike.  Some fruit must stay on the tree until it is ripe or almost ripe.  Some fruit must be removed from the tree and allowed to ripen that way.  In the end the key is to learn through the planting (trying), through the failure to yield fruit (failing) and through rethinking how to approach the situation so the tree will bear fruit (change).  

Also consider that not all of the fruit that is produced is edible or usable.  But just because a branch produces some non-edible fruit doesn't mean that the branch is no good and should be cut off.  Instead it is an acceptance that part of growing is failure.

What I am trying to articulate for you today is to consider the times of your life where you have tried and failed.  There is a wealth of information to gain and learn from failure.  It's in our failure where God's strength is brought to the forefront.  Its in our failure where we can do nothing but acknowledge that God has sustained us, kept us, forgiven us, moved us forward and picked us up.  

Today as you go through your day, maybe you will be faced with a failure in your personal life or in your work life.  You may have to deal with the fallout of a failure.  Transparent moment for me - I have been blessed with opportunities for a great deal of education.  I am an extremely introverted person.  I am very task oriented and driven.  However, over the last year, after a failed marriage, I am learning that I must show the people around me that I do treasure and value them.  Because I am introverted and task driven, I find it difficult and somewhat painful to grow in my personal relationships.  It's not at all because I do not value the relationship.  It's more because I have not developed properly in that area.  When become adults, everyone around us assumes that we know how to respond, how to act and what to do and for the most part many of us, even knowing our weak areas are too prideful to admit them so that we can be pruned and learn from our failures in order to grow.  

I so treasure my friends who know all of this about me and accept me anyway in my failings.  I feel like those are true friendships.  There are people that I'd like to reach out to, but I sometimes even fail to form the relationship outside of my own mind.  I think how great it would be to be some one's friend or to have a better bond with people that I love and care about, but years of abuse, lack of trust, and under developed social skills have stunted my growth in the area of creating and properly maintaining personal relationships.  For some, it seems that personal relationships are so easy.  They find it easy to talk to others, to share a piece of themselves, to trust and to develop friendships.  For me establishing personal relationships is painful because it's just difficult for me to talk at the right time or to know what I should say and to feel like I'm being genuine and real when I say it.  Most of the time I feel like relationships I want simply pass me by or I let them go too easily.

BUT . . . I realize that I can't stop trying. Even when I've experienced an epic failure and all of the associated hurts.  Just like everyone else, I need personal relationships.  I am not immune to the the need, even though, I sometimes tell myself that so that I don't have to push through difficult conversations or situations.  Sometimes it is directly in the middle of my failure that I learn the most valuable lessons, like how to be loyal and how to keep confidences.

I am glad that this area of my life is only a portion of what's on my branch and it's a fixable portion.  Through my failures, my tenacity to recover quickly and to keep trying and to want to grow, I believe that God sees that in me and that He cuts those areas that need to be cut and allows me to continue to grow.  Not everyone will stick around to see that growth and to know that they have a part in the results.  Not everyone who does stick around will readily recognize my growth, but I thank God that He will do it anyway for His glory and for my edification.

Think of yourself as a branch, which has been grafted into the true Vine.  There may be some unusable fruit or some leaves that are not so green.  No worries.  Yield that up to the Father who is the keeper or the husbandman as the scripture puts it.  It's His job to observe the branches and the fruit and to prune in such a way that will produce more.  Pruning may not feel good, but in order for you and I to be at our most productive, it is necessary.

Keep trying.  Accept that there will be failure.  Learn from the failure and make chances.  Allow yourself to be pruned based upon those needed changes.  Try again.  Grow.