Pruning

Spring time and pruning makes me think of the pruning that happens in my life. The pruning of our tree today was a picture of me. Big limbs, crooked limbs, twigs and tangles all needed to be removed so that it could be it's most beautiful self. In my own life the big things might be habits or attitudes that have taken a deep hold in my life and have to be forcibly even painfully let go of though once gone I could breath deeper. Crooked limbs wanting to go places that they shouldn't. Some so set in their way that they have to be cut off, some tender enough yet that they can be trained to go new ways. Twigs and tangles, the pesky mess that can keep me from seeing the big picture and what really needs removed. The distractions that steal my attention from what matters most.

Then there is the pruner. It takes patience, an eye to see, stepping back to see how things are shaping up and then diving into the mess to clean it all out. The pruner comes out covered in the dirt, the brush, the bits and pieces and then beholds the beauty of what He did!

I am that beautiful tree that will bear much fruit and to do so I must be willing to go to the Pruner.


When swelling and pride come, then emptiness and shame come also, but with the humble (those who are lowly, who have been pruned or chiseled by trial, and renounce self) are skillful and godly Wisdom and soundness. Prov. 11:2

“I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. He takes away every branch that does not bear fruit in me. He prunes every branch that bears fruit so that it will bear more fruit. You are clean already because of the word that I have spoken to you.

Remain in me, and I will remain in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.“I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me – and I in him – bears much fruit. John 15:1-5