Meet Jason Shyung

A gardener—a man with a floppy hat and gloves—is not what I usually imagine when I think of God and the final judgment of all nations. The image that normally comes to mind is very different: See Revelation 19:11-16. Luckily, Isaiah, who was gifted with the ability to write fantastic imagery, went outside the box and used the image of the gardener.

Because this passage involves gardening, it reminds me of my mother, who loves being in her garden with her gloves and pruning shears in hand. Every weekend, she spends hours pruning her plants. She examines them from bud to root and decides which parts are diseased, dead, or unproductive. After making her decision, she cuts off those unwanted parts and discards them. I never thought about the biblical lessons that I could learn from my mother's gardening, but this chapter of Isaiah shows that my mother's hobby has a lot to teach me about my faith.

When my mother gardens, she has a specific goal in mind. She wants her plants to productively bear the fruit they were designed to bear: flowers, chili peppers (my favorite), etc. To achieve that goal, my mother has to prune her plants and remove those parts that keep them from being fruitful. Like my mother, God has a specific goal in mind for all of us—namely, we all are to bear much fruit (John 15:8). To achieve that goal, God states that He will prune us so that we "may bear more fruit" (John 15:2). That pruning may require us to go through trials (Hebrews 12:3-11), or it may require us to throw off the sins and distractions that keep us from bearing fruit (Hebrews 12:1-2). 

This gardening imagery also brings up the sobering image of judgment. When that time comes, God will carry out one last pruning, keeping those parts that are fruitful and discarding those that are not (John 15:5-6). When those final pruning shears come, will God find you to be fruitful?