Vines and Pruning

A young tree is simple. A slender trunk. Maybe one or two branches.

After years of growth, and ignorant neglect, the tree is much different. It will be composed of a tangle of convoluted branches winding in and out of each other. Some may even have died.

Lives are like that. When we’re young, they seem simple. Uncomplicated.

As the years go by, we become entangled with worries and anxieties, ambitions and goals, sorrows and failures. It’s hard to get perspective. Difficult to see even where the trunk is.

Jesus told Martha, when she complained that sister Mary was just sitting there listening to him rather than helping in the kitchen, that ‘only one thing is necessary, and Mary has chosen the best thing’.

In life we need to maintain focus on the one thing that is necessary, and not become entangled with all the rest. 

Jesus also said that he is the vine and we are the branches, and that the Father in heaven is the gardener who prunes off those branches which are useless.

How many useless branches are entangling me today, Lord? Come and prune those which are unnecessary and just clogging my understanding and obscuring my vision.

Trees of the Field

Our summer weather continues to amaze and wilt us. Today it is in the 80’s – 30degrees C – which is unheard of in this corner of the globe. Loving it.

So Dusty and I opted for the ‘wet walk’ at Crathes Castle around 11 this morning. Or the ‘swimming for sticks’ walk – both names are recognised by Dusty who eagerly races to the car. Only today, with the summer weather we’ve been having, the wet walk was rather dried up! Well, only the big loch, really. The burns still gurgled, though less full than normal.

After several stick throwing diversions, Dusty and I headed on towards the Castle and I suddenly noticed the trees. Not that I wasn’t aware of them – they provided the canopy of cool which Dusty especially was loving. What I noticed, though, was how many broken-off branches there were lower down, before the leafy bits at the tops. I wondered how many of the branches were casualties of the weather – wind or lightning perhaps – and how many were pruned off? I wondered if any had just withered and died, malnourished from the centre somehow. 

Our lives are a bit like that. How many branches budded forth in my life, promising fulfilment perhaps, only to wither and die as I neglected to feed them? Ideas I’ve had for writing projects, for instance. Intentions of visiting shut-ins, perhaps. 

How many branches were growing strongly and then suddenly got broken off by external forces? Relationships which were broken – perhaps because someone died, like my sister Judy. Relationships which just withered because I didn’t nurture them. Relationships which became diseased in some way and were allowed to die.

Does my life have all the branches it is supposed to, or have i let God and myself down by allowing some to break off or wither?

There’s something so wonderful about tall trees. So majestic. So strong. Some, so ancient. We celebrate the bits we see, and forget about the branches that may have once given shelter to birds, shade to cows, but which are no longer there.

There’s a verse in the Old Testament about the ‘trees of the field clapping their hands’. Strange verse. But it refers to the days when heaven will be re-established on earth. When earth will once more be all it was created to be. Joy will be the norm, not sorrow.

Something reminiscent of branches in the clapping of a tree’s hands. I pray that on that incredible day when earth is once again 100% the Lord’s, all my branches will be restored, and I’ll be clapping them in jubilation.

Cut it out!

Yesterday while Don was having his malfunctioning leg vein lasered and removed, I needed to keep busy, so came home and pruned some bushes. 

I started with the dead climbing thing that gets the red berries – forget the name just now. It’s been dying in front of our eyes and has looked withered and lifeless all summer. Once I removed the wire that was holding it to the house, it readily broke off as I cut the thick branches. 

I moved on to the bushes that have been creeping up round the windows, cutting out some of the meagre light and growing into each other in a confusion of green tangle. I got about three-quarters finished when it was time to go back to the hospital to get Don.

This morning I sat in my prayer alcove, which looks out on the bushes I attacked yesterday. From that vantage point I could see what still remains to be done, but also could appreciate the amplified light now that some of the shading leaves were removed. 

I guess as a Christian the parable is obvious. God the Father prunes us. He cuts out what is dead and unsightly, as I did that first bush. Without his loving pruning, those dead and unsightly things in our lives can continue to mar our outward appearance and obscure our vision. 

He shapes our lives to resemble those of Jesus Christ. He removes those things which are entangling and tripping us up. We were created to do certain things; we were gifted to be certain people in the Kingdom, and other branches – however good and healthy they might look – can’t be left to divert the growth of our main purpose. 

He reduces our height – even those things we were made to do, and which are looking good, sometimes need to be trimmed back lest they become leggy and lose their vigour and vitality.

It doesn’t feel good to be pruned. But it is absolutely essential unless we want to become undisciplined and ineffective – and yes, even unsightly – as Christians.

I’m not done with my bushes yet, and funnily enough, I know that God the Father isn’t done with me.

Pruning

Dusty lagged behind this morning; so many good smells to investigate! I half-turned back to check her progress and found myself facing one of the many solid trees lining the path to the ‘fort’.  I pass it every day, at least once, and have noticed before the long finger of growth stretching towards the ground. 

Absent-mindedly I’ve assumed it was a weird root, like on trees in the rain forest whose roots reach from above ground, but today I recognized that it is, in fact, just a normal – but errant – branch finding its own way round a bigger branch. A branch that should be pruned.

The tree would benefit from some pruning. It would look more stately, its trunk reaching to the sky and sturdy branches only growing from it. 

I thought of John 15. Jesus is the metaphorical vine and the Father is the expert gardener, knowing exactly where to prune. Unfruitful branches are naturally lopped off but it’s interesting that those bearing fruit are also pruned so that they bear more fruit.

If we are going to resemble Jesus, we need pruning. All of us. Otherwise we become unbalanced. We may lose effectiveness because we are distracted by so many ‘good’ things to do. Sometimes the Father prunes away good things in our lives, because he has better things for us to do. It doesn’t feel good. In fact, it hurts.

But in the end, as we abide in Jesus, we will bear more fruit for the kingdom. 

So if you’re in a season of pruning, hang on. You’re going to be beautiful.