Pruning...God's Way

Have you ever had a plant or bush that you had to prune each year to optimize its growth? I love crape myrtles and was I ever disappointed when I moved to Indiana and realized that they didn't grow here! It is just too cold for them to thrive. But as a kid and later as an adult living in the south, I learned that for optimal flowers and growth on a crape myrtle, you had to prune it well. The experts will even tell you, "Correct pruning yields gracefully shaped trees with more blooms that are held upright on strong stems. And flowers arrive earlier than do those on unpruned or mis-pruned plants. Crape myrtles bloom on new growth, so prune them in early spring before they break dormancy."

My word for 2018 is "growth". God sure does have a sense of humor, doesn't he? Because just before the end of the first quarter of 2018, I no longer had the job that I loved. And while I have known, and strongly felt that God was in it and taking me on a wild journey, it wasn't until today that I realized He is pruning me.

I was comfortable in that job and felt that it was where God had prepared me to be during all of these many career years. I was flourishing and loving every aspect of it.  But He was pushing me, and I could feel it. Pushing me to do something different, that made a different kind of impact, and that shared more of me personally, and did more of His work.

While I am still searching and discerning, I realize that God prunes us at times for the same reason we prune crape myrtles or any other plant or bush that we want to see flourish and grow to its full potential.  Like John 5:12 says, "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit." According to The Better Homes & Gardens New Garden Book, “Grown under optimum conditions… a tree has a good chance to become the beauty you hope it will be.”  I would say that the optimal beauty they speak of here comes from the type of pruning that John is talking about.

But pruning has to come at the proper time and with the proper tools.  I think of Esther and her story that I clung to a few years ago during a difficult time and how timing was everything in Esther's story and mine then.  Pruning at the right time produces the optimal conditions for growth that brings strength, stature, beauty, and fruit.  God placed Esther in the exact place at the exact time.  He had planned for His intervention, and His work, to fulfill His perfect timing and His purpose. At the time, the same was true for me.  Watching it all play out was such a blessing.

In pruning, we allow ourselves to open up to this same result; remarkable growth.  But we have to accept it, though it is painful, and we have to use the proper tools.  If you pruned a crape myrtle with a chain saw, it would damage its fine trunk and limbs.  It is best to use a small hand saw for the larger limbs and hand trimmers for the smaller ones.  The same way we use the right tools on a crape myrtle, we should use the proper tools to prune our lives of the dead or diseased wood or foliage that exists and the things that are preventing us from the growth God truly intends for us.  The Bible, our prayer time, and God's word in many forms are the tools we should use to prune away the things in our lives that are no longer serving us, are inhibiting our growth, and preventing us from being who God is calling us to be.  Pruning in different areas of our lives encourages the type of growth that God is leading us to and that He expects.  As painful as it may be, He calls us to this process, and reminds us that the painful part of it is just for a moment.  “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” 2 Corinthians 4:17

So my word for 2018....GROWTH.  While I set the word intentionally, I didn't realize God was going to use it in a way that I didn't expect.  Like the crape myrtle, the growth will come following the pruning.  And just like each year that I would wait in anticipation for the beautiful flowers on my crape myrtle trees to bloom, I will anxiously await the growth that will come in my life.  I truly do appreciate His sense of humor.  I'm excited to see what grows out of it!






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