Pruning

My family and I moved to acreage a few years ago.  Part of what appealed to me about this chunk of land was the yard… a lot of what appealed to me.  So many trees and flowering bushes!  Two sides of the house are lined with spirea, and the roadside and driveway are lined with spirea as well.  And separating the front with the side yard is a row of large, beautiful, and fragrant lilac bushes, my favorite!  The downside… I don’t know what I am doing!  As the blooms decreased and the bushes began to look scraggly, like they had split ends and needed a haircut, I realized they wouldn’t grow right if I just ignored them and enjoyed their beauty, leaving them to grow their own way.  After a bit of research I learned how to care for them.  I waited for the right time, and then set to work with a thick pair of gloves.  I started browsing the outside, pulling out the dead, dried up, and leafless branches.  As I continued I saw how truly bad I had let them become and was pushing through foliage and into the middle of the bush cutting and yanking.  Limbs slapping me in the face and scratching my arms I pruned on, determined to make the bushes return to their glory, clearing out and casting aside the dead crumbling branches that no longer produced leaves and blooms.

I think you may see where I am going with this.  If we do not delve into God’s Word frequently, or spend time in prayer with him, and let ourselves go our own way; we will end up ripped out of the beauty and thrown away.  God uses the challenges we face to prune us and shape us and make us the best and most beautiful that we can be!  We need to submit to God’s pruning and trust his outcome.  I am sure if bushes could talk my lilac bushes would have said “Hey, that hurts, get out, get out!”, and they never would realize how beautiful they could be if they learned and allowed the pruning to shape their foliage rather than running away from the pruner (or slapping her in the face and scratching her arms).  Just as sometimes, often, we don’t realize our full potential by letting Satan fill us with doubts.  Satan’s doubts and our sins are the brown, dead, and dried up sticks that produce no leaves for the Lord.  Let God rip those out!  Let him shape you!  It may hurt a bit now, we may feel like fighting, slapping, and scratching… but in the long run we will shine forth in glory for the Lord, producing good works in his name!

Christ died so we could be complete, fresh and new with no dead branches.  God is the landscaper of our lives, trust him!

James 2:17 

So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough.  Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.”

1Peter 4:19

So if you are suffering in a manner that pleases God, keep on doing what is right, and trust your lives to the God who created you, for he will never fail you.

1 Peter 5:6-7

So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor.  Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

1Peter 5:10-11

In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus.  So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation.  All power to him forever! Amen.