Sunday was a lovely afternoon to tackle the out of control rose bush in my side yard. It was huge! A huge mangled mess of branches and thorns. Nothing beautiful about it. Nothing like my Nana's rosebushes that I remember from my childhood. Now SHE knew how to keep her rosebushes beautiful! She planted them in the spot where they would get the perfect amount of sun, watered them with care, and pruned them every year so that the blooms would come back every year even more lovely than the last.
As I pruned back the twisted branches I thought of the scripture I had been reading the night before... John 15:2.."...Every branch that bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit." When i clipped a branch, it didn't just fall to the ground. It had to be tugged and pulled to break free from the mess of dead branches. The thorns dug into my hands causing scratches, and some had to be cut in several places in order to be separated. It was a lot of work, and after I had finished, it was not a beautiful rosebush....not yet...it looked like a stick bush. Nothing more than a bunch of green thorny sticks growing out of the ground.
How often I pray to be a fruit bearing christian!! But not often enough do I remember the pruning process. So often I try to figure out God's plan before it's time, and when I can't figure it out I decide that I am just not able to be used by Him. I have too much "Junk". I am not gentle spirited enough, not wise enough, not respectful enough of a wife, or patient enough of a mom. "I am just useless" I will think to myself. Why is it that I feel the need to see all of God's plan to feel that He is using me?
So I remember the rose bush. It was ghastly looking in the beginning, but with Loving care, I, the gardener cut away those gnarly branches, and shaped it into the stick bush so that in due time it will produce it's fruit. This time next year it will have many beautiful roses and the year after that it will have even more...and so on it goes...
I may look like a stick bush (so to speak) at this point in my life, but budding season is coming. I may look like a beautiful rosebush at this point in my life, but pruning season is coming. Either way, the christian life is not a life of just beautiful rosebushes (because those are only plastic). Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it is uncomfortable, sometimes it is ugly.....but when I allow God to work on me, when I allow him to prune where needed, when I trust Him as master gardener in my life, I can expect the outcome to be nothing less than beautiful.
