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.
John 15:2
Dear Father,
My backyard seems scraggly right now but actually it is ready for growth. My husband and I spent the last weekend out there pruning, clipping, digging, cutting, and reshaping our little yard. It was hard work and we were tired but boy we felt a sense of accomplishment as the last branch was hauled away. So now it looks pretty sparse with a few stick trees lining the back fence. But in a couple of months those sticks will sprout into lovely pink Crepe Myrtles and the flowers will bloom out colorfully filling the gaps of my tiny garden. It was that vision and hope of what will be that urged us to continue with the shears and pruners. Is that how it is with our lives? You the Master Gardener knows that if we are pruned and weeded that the garden of our lives will be so much more attractive, fruitful and useful. You could leave us alone and we would still be yours but our lives would look pretty shaggy. So with love you take the clippers and lop off a branch here and there. You take a shovel and dig out roots that don’t belong and till the soil of soon to be flower beds. And if we are cooperative and obedient then a beautiful life will grow. But O’ Lord how it hurts when you set out to prune us. How we hang on to roots that need to be pulled up and shrink back from being shaped for your pleasure. Your tools come in many varieties but in your hands the end results are beautiful. Sometimes you allow physical ailments to remind us of how we need to begin taking care of our bodies. Sometimes you allow loss or change of jobs to show us that you are our all-sufficient provider. Sometimes you allow the severance of a relationship that was taking us in a direction we did not need to go. All of these and the countless more things you use to tend us are all for one thing – to make us a display of your splendor. But one thing that caught my attention in all this it that is work for you. You have the vision of what we will be and you do the hard work. You labor in our little lives. That is so humbling to me. The God of all things works in my life – what a thought! Thank you. Forgive me for being the one always yelling “ouch, stop, don’t!” and fussing about what you are doing with me. I once again bow before you and say ‘tend this little garden O Lord.’ Amen.
Love,
Penny
