&fterthought.

In-N-Out.

-In the middle of easter service in New York-

Me:*grabs Deborah* DUDE.

Deborah: …umm…what?

Me: TODAY IS EASTER.

Deborah: …yes…and…?

Me: I CAN HAVE BURGERS AGAIN.

And thus released my voracious appetite for In-N-Out.  I thought that giving up burgers and fries for lent would be relatively easy compared to other things I could have given up, but I was quickly proven wrong.  Why did I crave it so much?

I don’t know, but two things will happen when I take a bite out of my first double double in almost two months.  

     1.  The content gives me substance to continue living (provision).  The protein, sugars, and carbs will all go to my body in its appropriate places to give me energy.

This isn’t the main reason why I’m excited to have an In-N-Out burger though.  The main reason is that

     2.  The taste gives me pleasure to enjoy it (praise).  This is the key.  It’s very difficult to convince yourself to eat something if it doesn’t taste good, even if it’s good for you.  How do I know that I enjoy it?  You’ll hear me lean back with my mouth stuffed and go “…mmmmmmmm…..”

The crazy thing is that christianity works the same way.  When the psalmist in psalm 34 says “Taste and see that the Lord is good…”, he’s not literally saying to take a bite, and then look at God and come to the conclusion that He’s good.  He’s saying, “take a bite and come to the understanding that God is good.”  Chew on it, and respond!  

What exactly do you chew on?  You chew on God’s word.  His words are like honey on the lips.  His words are like water for the soul.  It’s no coincidence that this imagery comes up so often, it’s how we get a better understanding of how our soul works.

When I eat a burger, I respond by saying, “mmmmmm.”  When I hear the word of God, I respond by saying, “hallelujah!”.  It’s only natural! 

The song “Hallelujah! What a Savior” is a great example of this.  Why?  Because each verse is structured by the outline of Psalm 34:8 -  

The content (provision):

Guilty, vile, and helpless we;
Spotless Lamb of God was He;
“Full atonement!” can it be?

The response (praise):

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Take a listen to the song while reflecting on the lyrics, and train your spiritual taste buds to savor how sweet God’s salvation is.  I promise that you’ll never go back to thinking that the Bible is “dull” or “boring”.  ever.

LongDistance.

As I bid farewell to my wonderful girlfriend for the ninth time, it struck me that the next time I would see her in California would be the two year mark for us.   The funny thing is that so many people ask how in the world I could do long distance for so long, and I don’t have a very good answer for them.  They say that I’m crazy for staying in a relationship for so long.  Now that it’s been a couple years since we’ve done it, I can now say I do have the answer.

In previous relationships, I’ve come across similar situations where I had to do long distance for a period of time, except they were closer and a lot more manageable.  Whether it was across the city or across the state, it was definitely nothing like across the country.  However, I found my heart struggling.  There was no way that I could be happy with the situation, and I knew my heart wasn’t in it.  What could have changed for me from being adamantly against long distance to being completely for it (and liking it)?

The answer?  I met Deborah.  At the end of her one week in California, she made it clear by saying, “You know that we’re not going to be in the same city for at least two years.”  

But for some reason, instead of scaring me away, I thought, “Well. It looks like we have to do long distance.”  

This is the power of meeting a loved one, but this is just a shadow of what love can do when the loved one is Jesus Christ.  Compared to my earlier life, virtually every aspect of my life is radically different.  I value different things, love different things, and abhor different things, all because I simply met Jesus.  This is why Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians 5,

“If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:The old has gone, the new is here!”

There’s so many christians I know that don’t pray, don’t seek after God, don’t talk about Him, yet say they’re in a relationship with God.  So when they’re asked to do something crazy like speak up about Jesus, go on missions, or even serve at church, it sounds like such a chore.  It sounds so tedious.  It’s like doing long distance with the wrong person.

But Jesus changes everything.  He gives me a reason for living.  He gives me a reason for loving.  He gives me an answer for my suffering.  He gives me hope for the world’s suffering.  He’s even healed me of minor physical ailments.  

But most of all, He gives me Himself, which is far more satisfying, gratifying, and worthy of praise than anything else in the world.  It’s only when this clicks that evangelism, missions, serving, or even prayer becomes a delight rather than a chore.  

Have you met Him?

Bullfight.

(Start at 1:05) I’m not quite sure if this qualifies as your typical bullfight.  In fact, I don’t really know much of what’s going on here.  However, here’s a few things I took away from this random video I found:

• Spaniards are crazy
• It takes about 7 able-bodied men to calm a charging bull
• Giving people relationship advice is like telling a bull what to do

I say this knowing that there were many times where I’ve failed to listen to relationship advice myself, and it usually ended badly for me.  So many warnings by parents and friends were completely dismissed as I went about blindly in my hopeless pursuits of love.  So many suggestions by pastors or christian books that I would glance at but never take to heart. 

Through getting older, I’ve realized that I can sympathize with someone’s emotions and situation, but I am always doubtful in expecting people to heed to my advice. I can’t help but be reminded of Jeremiah 17:9 - The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

This is why it astounds me when I witness someone coming to Christ.  It completely changes someone’s heart.  Their decisions are counter-intuitive compared to their previous life.  Seeing this kind of transformation first hand is undeniable.  With all this talk about there being hypocrites in church (which always will be true), what about those that actually have gone through an otherwise inexplicable transformation?  How do you explain that?

And whatever you come up with, try telling that to a wild bull.

¹³ Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. ¹⁴ The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.      -1 Timothy 1:13-14

Tebow.

There is Tebow-mania going on in the sports world and it’s incredibly polarizing.  It seems that everyone has a stance on Tebow’s public acknowledgement of faith.  Even people that don’t know much about football can say something about how they feel about Tebow praying after every touchdown.  This is how oddly polarizing Tim Tebow is: there are non-christians who like Tebow for standing up for what he believes in, and there are christians who dislike Tebow for shoving their faith down people’s throats.  How does an issue get more dividing than that?!

To non-christians against Tim Tebow:

If you’re going to attempt to make our God look ridiculous by making cute charts like this, then there’s a few things you need to know.

First: You hold an assumption that, if God existed, He is currently prioritizing Tebow’s football game over third world poverty.  God’s priority is for His glory to be made known throughout the world.  I’m not one to say whether it comes from a football game or not, but I know that it’s a bad assumption.  You’re the one that prioritizes football over third world poverty, and you assume that God conveniently thinks the way you do!

Second: You also hold the assumption that it’s God’s fault that this poverty exists in the first place.  If you’re going to assume that God exists, then why don’t you see what God says about the issue?  What you’re going to find is that brokenness came to the world because of human (that includes your) sin, and God is in the business of restoring all brokenness.  He is currently helping the poor, the sick, the hungry, and the dying through thousands of people that are more passionate about the issue than you are.

Third: Tim Tebow has spent a good portion of his free time (especially in the summers) ministering to the poor in the Philippines - more specifically, helping build orphanages, hospitals, and churches in the area.  Why isn’t he doing it now then?  Because through the NFL he’s able to fund the Tim Tebow Foundation and do more of God’s work than he could on his own.  Not to mention he’s made John 3:16 one of the hottest search terms more than once.  I think it’s safe to say that God’s using Tebow’s life powerfully for the sake of His glory.

To Christians against Tim Tebow:

Being a christian was never cool.  Even though our country was founded on christian morals and religious freedom, the public will not see the Gospel message as cool, palatable, or even nice to hear.  Why?  Because nobody likes to hear that they’re a bad person and that they need someone to save them.  So if you have a relationship with Jesus, it should not be in your interest to “keep the peace” or “try not to make anyone feel uncomfortable” when people’s eternal destinies are at stake.  I say this knowing that I need to believe this much more than I do currently. 

Above all else though, the reason why you should like Tim Tebow is because no matter what the score is for the Broncos vs. Patriots game, I know what his postgame speech will be.  

He’ll humbly thank His Lord and Savior.

He’ll humbly thank his teammates and coaches.

And he’ll get right back to work without having done a single bad thing to you personally as you criticize his life. 

2012.

Ever since I left college and entered into the post-education world, each year was able to provide for me a very clear and encapsulating theme in summary. 

2009 - Out In The Ocean.  This was the year of leaving the comfortable and entering into the great unknown.  I felt like I had been floating along in this gentle stream for all my life, only to be thrust into a giant, haunting, endless body of water.  My career path? Relationship future? Who knows?  How do I know where to go?

2010 - From Vine To Vine.  There were so many transitions this year.  It gave me great clarity into many aspects of my life, at the expense of leaving what was comfortable.  I left my part time job teaching guitar and found full-time work (after 4 months of searching).  I left my church that I had been going to for over 10 years to go to TPC Joy.  I even left my state to go to many different places (Japan, drove to New York, and Mexico). 

2011 - Faith In Waiting.  Not every year calls for immense change, and this was one of those years that felt like a standstill.  Even though I felt like my life was stagnant, I knew God was active in teaching me.  It wasn’t an easy year, but that’s not to say it wasn’t a fun one.

2012 - Clean sweep.  This is the year that everything is going to change.  I know it.  When everything changes, what will my security and foundation be?  I’ll know by the end of this year.  God tends to show you what your biggest idols are when they’re threatened to be taken away, and everything about my life right now could possibly be changed or taken away.  

God, I pray that in 2012, I will be able to say that I was faithful to Your Word and dependent on You for all my needs.

Death.

I’m a young person.  I’ve been to more weddings than I have funerals.  Because of this, the concept of death is much more a foreign concept to me than it is a personal reality. 

Maybe that’s why it’s difficult to swallow.  When I heard the news of a childhood friend passing away, it suddenly became a lot more real.  I’m enraged at the idea that my facebook world wouldn’t pay their condolences (even if they didn’t even know the person).  I’m perplexed by the world and how it continues to spin, even if I’m stopped at my tracks. 

What hurts the most though, is that I’m reminded that the world I spent 24 years building is a fragile one.  Not only did a childhood friend die, but part of my childhood along with it died as well.  The hand of God is quick to peel off the delicate layers of my life.  Who knows how long it will be before I am found completely unpeeled, naked, and found with nothing more than what I came with. 

Ultimately though, this post isn’t about me.  It’s not even about my friend passing.  I write this to remind you, who still has air to breathe and a mind to understand, that we live in a stained glass world that is plummeting towards a concrete floor.  Everything we hold dear in this world will shatter, and no human being created in God’s image should be okay with this futility.  What hope do we have, if it’s not in Jesus Christ?

Lump.

A few days ago I found a lump on my body, and like most people, I checked WebMD.  Also, like most people, I checked the symptoms and assumed it was the worst possible thing: cancer.  Of course, the possibility of that happening is slim to none, but for some reason I had the deep-seated anxiety that my lump was the cancerous one. 

Why does this happen?  My heart can be so crippled with unnecessary fear, especially when nothing is certain until the results come in.  As I wrestle with this, I realized that it’s because of the devastating power of the future.

The future takes a small seed of doubt and transforms it into a forest of despair.  It seemingly replaces the present with the most crippling possible future satan can conjure up.  It’s what makes you feel like you have cancer when you just have a stomach ache.  It’s what makes you feel like you’re going to be shunned by your family and homeless when you fail a test.  There is no situation that can’t be sinfully exaggerated, and I am guilty of doing it a lot.  

Sure, those things can happen.  Each minuscule decision we make can have eternal consequences.  That’s how the crippling effect of the future gets its power.  

I’m still waiting for the results of my ultrasound.  But waiting for it will not hinder me so long as I have Jesus’ words in my heart. 

“Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? 

…Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” 

Shooting.

Meet Deborah.  This was her first time shooting a real gun, and she shot a near bulls-eye.  It was pretty impressive (and a little scary), but she laughed it off as if she’d been poppin’ caps her whole life.  As intriguing as her first shot was though, the rest of the round showed that she was not actually a skilled secret agent.

My results were more or less the same.  Fairly adequate for a first-time shooter, but there were still holes all over the place.  It was a stark reminder of sin to me, as the common definition used in the bible for sin is “missing the mark”.  While this definition doesn’t depict the terror of how devastating sin really is, it did point out something very insightful: I was always aiming for the bulls-eye every time I missed.

My intentions were always to hit the mark, but my actions rarely ever amounted to it.  The same can be said for my spiritual life.  No matter how much I strive for holiness, I always find a way to miss.  Other times, I have a motive other than glorifying God and those times I’m aiming for the wrong target altogether!  Now I know the struggle that Paul describes in Romans 7:18 when he writes,

“For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.”

Perfection is really. hard.  I know it’s a struggle to do the right thing, but I didn’t know it could be this difficult. I didn’t know it could be this frustrating, and I didn’t know I could feel so powerless at times.

But.

“Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ, our Lord!”

Perspective.

What is this a picture of?

Lately I’ve been wrestling with the power of perspective.  It sounds like such a subjective, amenable word, when in reality it forms and shapes our entire lives.  Our perspective is the world as we know it.  

A lot of non-christians struggle with many concepts that have to do with perspective.

 ”How could a loving god send people to hell?”  

“How can christianity be the only true religion?”

“If God were real, why doesn’t He show himself to me now?”

In order to answer these, we have to clarify something.  When you ask questions about God, you have to be willing to see his stance on these issues.  Otherwise, you’re assuming your perspective is more trustworthy and true than God’s.  If that were the case, you’d have much more credible knowledge and insight about humanity and our existence than the bible, right?  So if you’re asking questions about God, shouldn’t you at least know what He says about Himself?  

 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, 
   neither are your ways my ways,” 
            declares the LORD. 
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, 
   so are my ways higher than your ways 
   and my thoughts than your thoughts.    -Isaiah 55:8-9

It’s a matter of life and death.  Are you sure your perspective is the right one?  

…Did you know what the first picture was?

I suggest reading Tim Keller’s “The Reason For God” for answers to these questions.  Ask me about it!

Puzzle.

Puzzles require patience, persistence, and a keen eye.  Working on this one was so time-consuming and frustrating.  I mean, it’s Starry Night, which is already swirly and confusing as a single piece of artwork, let alone 1000 little fragments.  Also, it was a photomosaic, which meant that each individual puzzle piece had its own pictures in it.  Combine that with my tendency towards impatience, instant gratification, and big-picture focus (instead of detail-oriented), and you’ve got the perfect storm …arry night. 

The biggest challenge was keeping all the unsolved pieces together.  Because it was in the living room of my college apartment, it moved around a lot.  It didn’t bother us too much until we sat there with a giant photomosaic puzzle of Starry Night with one piece missing from the sky.  One piece!  It wasn’t until months later that we found the missing piece under our couch (don’t know how we didn’t see it before), but man.  What a feeling it was to retrieve that missing piece!

Puzzles last but a few months and have a thousand pieces.  My life feels like a puzzle sometimes, with just a few pieces.  I can count 7 pieces I hope to have set in place by the end of my life.

Ministry.

Job.

Wife.

Kids.

Music.

Nature.

USC football.

How will it all play out?  How will it all come together?  What if God’s “puzzle” for me looks completely different?  Will I be angry when one of these pieces is missing, or will I be confident that God has all the pieces to my life, and that it’s just a matter of time before He puts it together?

“He has made everything beautiful in its time.”    -Ecclesiastes 3:11

P.S. How sweet will it be when in heaven, we see that our puzzle was just one tiny piece of the giant photomosaic that is Jesus Christ and Him glorified?

Cats.

I’ll admit it, I am a cat person.  I very much enjoy cats.  Not in the “Debbie” kind of way, but in the “I-find-them-fascinatingly-similar-to-humans-but-not-in-an-obsessive-manner” kind of way.  I have nothing against dogs, but I feel myself drawn to cats more.  How do they sneak around like ninjas?  How do they climb walls like ninjas?  How do they beat up dogs like ninjas? Are cats really miniature ninjas?  How come a guy can’t like cats without gettin’ haters everywhere?

Anyway, there’s an interesting saying about cats, dogs, and theology, and it goes like this. 

“A dog says, ‘you pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, you love me, you must be God.’ A cat says, ‘You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, you love me, I must be God.’”

While silly and simple, it accurately sums up the mindset behind many young church-goers.  Was God created for us humans, or were we created for a higher being?  For some reason, it’s really easy to get that mixed up.  I’m a cat person, but I pray that I never become a cat christian.  Here are what I believe are some of the characteristics of cat christians (also things that I’ve gone through/are still going through).

• Cat christians hop around from church to church.  When you think church is about you, then you have all the right to leave when it doesn’t make you happy, right?  
• Cat christians ask “why” during times of difficulty.  When you think life is about you, then bad things shouldn’t happen to you as long as you go to church and do your devos, right?
• Cat christians aren’t generous givers.  When you think you’ve earned your comfort and wealth, then it doesn’t make sense to sacrifice it for others, right?

Know who you live for, because it’ll shape every single decision you make today. 

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. 2 Corinthians 5:14-15

Terminal.

(One of my favorite movies.)

I learned a good lesson this past Labor Day weekend in the Laguardia airport. It went something like this:

6:30 PM: The last few hours leading up to my departure are the worst.  Especially after having such an amazing weekend relaxing, playing, and living life with Deborah.  So what do I do?  I sneak in a little prayer. “God, if there’s any way, could you cancel my flight so that I could stay here a little longer?”

6:45 PM: I arrive at the airport and breezily go through security.  With about an hour left for my flight, I decide to chat with Deborah and head towards my terminal.

7:01 PM: There’s a giant line at the customer service desk for AirTran.  It didn’t take me long to figure out that…a flight to Atlanta has been cancelled.  I freak out a little bit because I know that’s where my layover is.  After I double-check, I’m relieved to see that my flight is still on time for 7:45.

7:13 PM: While talking, all of a sudden I remember what I prayed for.  It hit me that I have an opportunity to trade flights with someone who needs it, and I can spend more time in New York!  I rush back to the line.

7:16 PM: I ask the customer service if I could switch with someone who needs it.  Someone else next to me says that he has a ticket that he’d be willing to give up as well.  He goes on to say that as long as he can sleep in the terminal, he’s fine to giving up his ticket for someone who needs to go home (he was travelling with what I believe was his wife, but decided to let her fly without him).  Man, I’m feeling more and more selfish by the minute.

7:22 PM: The customer service takes his ticket first because mine is a layover and is a bit more complicated.  It’s taking awhile to go through.

7:29 PM: It finally goes through and he switches tickets with someone who really needed to go home.  He didn’t even get any compensation, but did it out of charity.  What did I want to do it for?  To spend another day with my girlfriend? Man. How selfish is my heart?

7:35 PM: I ask one last time if I can switch, but she said since my flight was leaving in less than 10 minutes, I should go ahead and take my flight. So I sadly took all my things and boarded my flight.  

It ate me up inside knowing that if I had only gone up to the customer service desk earlier, I could probably have spent an extra day in New York.  I also was shocked to see how God was so close to answering my prayer in a real way.  Why didn’t He just cancel my flight and not someone else’s?

But God doesn’t mess up.  It wasn’t that He slipped up my prayer request.  Or He misunderstood my desire.  It was that certain moments require both divine predestination as well as willful action.  God opened the door for my prayer to be answered, but I had to walk through it. 

Don’t believe that predestination and free will can coexist?  Well the bible does.  Read Acts 27 (starting from verse 13).  Paul and his crew are in a bad storm when he receives word from an angel guaranteeing that everyone will survive.  Why then, does he say to his crew in v. 31, “Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved” ? It’s because they had received confirmation, but still had to obey in order for the confirmation to come to fruition.

Sometimes, God answers prayers without our involvement.  

But other times, God answers prayers through our involvement.

Ab-hancer.

Check out the bod on this guy!  

This “product” makes for a great gag for many reasons, but the main reason why we laugh is still the same.  We laugh because we know that this is a devastating example of the lust for instant gratification.  It’s ridiculous to think that we can attain the chiseled abs of a bodybuilder without…building our body.  As I’ve grown up and experienced more, I’ve realized how deep this issue of instant gratification can really hit people.  

Watch this experiment that simply gives a child a choice: one marshmallow now, or two marshmallows 15 minutes later.  They followed the kids for 18 years and noticed that those who were able to hold off instant gratification were more likely to do better in their schools, relationships, and work.  

The thing that I’ve come to realize is that being a christian is the ultimate test of instant gratification.  

At man’s best, some might wait through 4-10 years of schooling for 50 years of wealth.

Some might wait through 1-50 years of loneliness for 50 years of companionship.

But the christian is not guaranteed any gratification from their work or effort (see: Moses’ ministry and how he never entered the promised land after 40 years of his people’s complaints and problems).  Instead, our true gratification won’t appear until after we’ve spent our entire lives in obedience to Him.  

Do you struggle with instant gratification?  These are characteristics of what I believe to be an Ab-hancer-Christian.  I’ve dealt with all of these characteristics to some degree.

• Has “faith”, but complains about his/her situations often.  How can you possibly read the bible and not see that faith is being certain of what you hope for? (Heb. 11:1)  That knowing Jesus is the secret to being content in whatever circumstance?
• Has “faith”, but gets burnt out from serving.  How can you serve at a church unless you know that your labor for the Lord is not in vain? (1 Cor. 15:58)  What is sustaining you during those times where you see virtually no results or fruit in your ministry?
• Has “faith”, but doesn’t sacrifice for others.  How can you give cheerfully and sacrificially without knowing and understanding the sacrifice that Jesus made for us?

Fix your eyes on Jesus.  

He never complained.  

He never stopped serving wholeheartedly.  

But most of all, He, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, scorning its shame. 

Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Heb. 12:1-3)

Hanabi.

One year ago today, I was in Higashi-Murayama, Tokyo.  I took this picture on the subway during the gorgeous, 3 hour Hanabi (Fireworks) Festival.  It was stunning, to say the least. This picture means a lot to me because it represents how suddenly and beautifully my mind and heart changed during my stay.  

Before, I thought California was the best place to live.  Now, I’m not too sure…

Before, I was concerned only with what was around me.  Now, I have a much greater understanding of the sufferings and joys of the global church.

Before, I had a heart that only thought inwardly.  Now, I have a heart with mission.

Every moment is an opportunity for my heart to be on mission.  To hear of tragedy after tragedy in Japan and how it greatly affected the people that I met was terrible.  To know that many of them did not know Jesus was even more gripping.  What can I offer to a broken, fallen world?  What could I possibly do to help relieve a disaster-stricken, unchurched society?

 Not much, but I can pray with all my mission-driven heart to a God who can.  

Smash.

This game completely took over my life back when I was in college.  I devoted at least an hour or two every day, learning new techniques, sparring against friends, or playing at tournaments - and I actually did well.  Although playing video games isn’t technically a sin, my obsession with it drew me away from things like reading my bible, being a part of a fellowship, or other more holy things.  

Now, I hardly ever play video games.  I don’t remember the last time I played Smash.  I won’t turn down a game if somebody asks, but I don’t think I’d ever desire to play on my own anymore.  It’s not that I’ve changed that much, honestly, but it’s because I don’t have time for it.  During the week I’m working, and when I’m not working I’m working on music.  During the weekend I’m serving, and when I’m not serving I’m working on music.  Where in my impacted schedule is there time for video games?  Nowhere. 

But don’t mistake that for sanctification.  One thing I’ve realized as I’ve gotten older is that there’s still sin issues in my life that I’m slowly working on.  I’d like to say that I’ve gotten better at them, but truth is, some things are harder to give up than others.  

I’d like to say that I’m more disciplined now, but is it just because I have less time?

I’d like to say that I’m less selfish now, but is it just because I have more money?

I should be more radical with the way I use my time.  I should be more generous than I have ever been in the past.  But merely modifying my behavior doesn’t change anything about my heart.  That’s like saying “This tree needs to grow more fruit” when the tree is uprooted.  

Because the very roots that tree is dependent upon is grace.  Grace for when we fail.  Grace for when we fall.  Grace giving us another day to try again.  Grace to see the perfect life already lived for us through Jesus Christ.  Grace to allow Him to work, and grace for us to experience it.  Don’t merely drop bad habits and call it sanctification - be sanctified and see your shortcomings disappear.

And because of himyou are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ”Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”   - 1 Corinthians 1:30-31