Pruning is Essential for Soul Formation
About the photo: Early one morning, my husband captured this beautiful image from my “Sheila’s Perfume” rose bush. I am trying to learn how to prune roses for their best “fruitfulness.”
I liked this quote from a wise woman whose blogs I read.*
God’s pruning is “decreasing our fullness to increase our fruitfulness”
Dr. Alicia Britt Chloe (dr. abc)
Pruning is essential—not only for flowers, plants, shrubs, and trees, but it is also a necessity for Christ-followers like me who want our souls transformed to look more like the one we follow. Jesus used a garden analogy to illustrate the spiritual principle of pruning:
“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the [master] gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more” (John 15:1-2 NLT).
I am by no stretch of the imagination a “master gardener,” but I do enjoy putzing in the yard. When I was a little girl, I loved to dig in the dirt, creating “mud pies” and other little-girl handiwork. Today, even though my hands and fingernails protest, I still like to play in the dirt and often eschew wearing gloves because I love the feel of earthy soil running through my fingers.
A few weeks ago, I went outside to do some pruning on our six tomato plants. As I was doing so, I asked God, the Master Gardener, to lop off those branches in me that are either non-productive or will zap energy necessary to produce good fruit.
In the process of pruning, I erroneously cut off one branch that had some tiny little tomatoes and flowers growing on it. I felt awful! My mistake, however led me to pray that as a woman who wants to live an authentic, gracious life, I will be prayerful and diligent in my multiple roles as a wife, mother, grandmother, friend, life coach, blogger, and spiritual director to avoid accidentally doing harm.
Alas, the damage to my poor tomato plant had been done. I apologized to “Ms. Early Girl” and reluctantly tossed my mistake into the compost bin. I thanked God that He doesn’t make mistakes in His pruning process.
Then, I also realized that because I am familiar enough with myself to know I am quite full of me and too often act in my “fullness” rather than in humility. As a result, there will be times when I need to apologize for careless words or deeds. I am beyond grateful that God can take my blunders and recycle them for good purposes.
So many valuable lessons to be learned in the garden!
Blessings on the remainder of your summer!
