Lots of changes are going on in my neck of the woods. God is moving and doing all kinds of new things. I always say that I love change as long as it’s my idea. That gives you an indication of how things are going here! The Lord has been talking to me about letting go of the old, yet I find myself grieving and pouting rather than taking His advice:
“Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.
Isaiah 43:18-19
The trouble I’m having is that I can only see tiny little sprouts of the new thing He is bringing about. I can’t really tell what it is, or what it will look like. So I’d much rather hang on to the old thing. It’s fully visible. It’s familiar.
Then, last night I went to bible study and heard a teaching on pruning. Suddenly, I realized that what God is doing in me right now isn’t about a “right” thing versus a “wrong” thing. It’s not about punishment or His preference over mine. It’s not about me giving up something so He’ll give me something in return… as if I had any negotiating power.
It’s about fruit. It’s about pruning to gain more fruit.
Even though I’ve already blogged about this subject, I find myself under the Master Gardener’s care and needing to write about the pruning process once again. There are some old blooms in my life that need to be cut away to make room for new blooms…new fruit.
Jesus talks about this process in John 15:1-2…
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
These verses tell me that all things need to be pruned from time to time. Not just dried-up and fruitless branches, but fruitful branches must be pruned as well. There goes my secret hope that He’ll leave certain things alone in my life!! His goal is fruit: more love, more joy, more peace, more patience, more goodness, more kindness, more gentleness, more faithfulness, more self-control. While some things in our lives can damage or inhibit our spiritual growth, it’s not always the removal of things that facilitates more fruit.
It’s the process of pruning that grows us, shapes our character,
and makes us more like Jesus — the most fruitful of all.
For those who fear the pruning process, let me be clear. He’s been tender… gently asking me to let go of things and giving me fair warning of what will be removed. But the truth is that whether or not I want to let go, He’ll eventually prune them away.
Our cooperation in the process makes a big difference. When we stop wrestling over the thing He wants to remove, we will see that His ways are higher than ours. We’ll see what He is really up to. He may prune out a job, a relationship, or a ministry, but what He’s really trying to root out is fear. Resentment, Selfishness. Pride. Self-sufficiency.
Can I lay down my will and my wants or will I be angry and bitter? Will I run in fear, or will I trust the Master Gardener and believe that He is doing this because He is good and He loves me? Will I learn to embrace the pruning, knowing that this process is achieving God’s dreams for me? Can I testify with certainty that pruning is good?
Holy Spirit, teach me to yield. Speak truth to me when my heart begins to fear the pruning process. Point me back to Jesus, back to the Father so that He may have His way in me.
