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.