Most of us know that women and men have different approaches to many things. This is certainly true for my wife and me. One example is how Karen and I take care of what grows in our yard.

I'm a trimmer. When the right day comes along, and they seem to come along less frequently as I get older, I surge out into the yard with my clippers and trim every bush in sight-hey, it's trimming day! For many years I got into trouble because of a Lilac bush. Lilac bushes will not bloom in the spring if they are trimmed too soon. I trim so early in the spring that I never knew that the bush was a Lilac, because it never bloomed.

My wife is a pruner. She prunes our vines throughout the year so that they will continue to produce more flowers. As the summer comes, the flowers disappear and Karen again prunes the vine and it produces even more flowers.

In today's gospel, Jesus is using an agricultural image that the people of his time could easily understand and it is one that most of us can also appreciate. Jesus compares himself to a vine, with each of us being a branch. Faith is what binds the branches to the vine. If we maintain our faith in Jesus, we can bear much fruit in the world. However, if our faith in Jesus withers, we will not produce much fruit for the Kingdom of God. Jesus is not thinking here of a material-kind of fruit that we are tempted to produce for ourselves.

When I was busy in the business world producing too much material fruit and too little spiritual fruit, my connection was closer to the material world than to Jesus. Jesus then pruned me by separating me from my job. With more time on my hands, I began to think more about spiritual things and to become more connected to Jesus. After finding a new job, I repeated a similar process again. Over several experiences like this, my relationship with Jesus became firmer and my relationship with my job became less important.

There's one part of the gospel reading that I don't like to contemplate: Jesus says, "Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned." This may be one of the places where we get the idea that Hell is a hot place.

Jesus will prune us and give us the opportunity to bear more fruit for the Kingdom. Here is where free choice comes in. God always invites us and we have free will to accept the invitation or not. Some of us are very independent and we do not want anyone telling us what to do. But, the consequences of saying "yes" or "no" are so dramatically different. We can remain in Jesus and bear much fruit, or we will become a withered branch that will be burned.

All of us become pruned during our lives. Each of us is on our own personal journey of faith and will be pruned in different ways and at different times. Pruning involves some type of suffering, be it physical, mental, or spiritual. Each pruning is an opportunity to draw closer to Christ. We must examine each pruning to discover what we have learned and to not consider recovery from the pruning as just one more personal conquest of adversity. God is working in each one of our lives, even when we are totally ignorant of him doing so.

The Good News of staying connected to Jesus is that he says, "...ask for whatever you want and it will be given to you." Of course, God gives us what we need, not necessarily what we want. It usually takes awhile to realize the difference.