Surrendering to the Shears... a New Years Resolution

(I actually wrote this yesterday and thought I'd wait to post it but a conversation this morning has reminded again of some needed "pruning".)

This Morning I was greeted by three thorny, intrusive rose bushes.  They line the walkway to our front door and have grown quite gangly as they’ve been left unattended. So earlier this afternoon I grabbed my pruning shears and set out to do a little pruning.  I was struck by how overgrown they’d become. They hardly looked like roses at all and weren't their beautiful selves for sure!  Some stems had to be clipped in excess of 4 feet! 

Pruning is one of those things I avoid like the plague but once out there I find myself in conversation with God and I wonder why I would ever procrastinate such sweet encounters. Maybe it’s the mess and prickly thorns that I don’t like.  Maybe it’s simply inconvenient and I don’t want to be bothered or interrupted.   Maybe I don’t readily see the value that pruning brings.  Maybe it’s all three.  Well, like it or not, pruning must occur for roses to be ready in the spring; and my out of sight, out of mind approach has produced a rather deformed and diseased set of rose bushes.

 John 15:2, “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.”

 "Angel Face"

As I mingled with God among the thorns I was mindful of a different pruning – the one that God does in us.  I'm tempted to avoid moments like that because it’s messy or inconvenient and I neither want my daily routine interrupted nor my heart disrupted.  However, when our heart is left unattended the places that need pruning become painfully obvious.  Life becomes about me, I'm easily irritated, sometimes dismissive, and often lack love. Thorny, overgrown branches prick and sting others while my soul becomes deformed and diseased. 

Thankfully the story does not end there.  When we "surrender to the shears" God does the needed work to shape our life into a resemblance of His beauty and presence that is good and kind.  One of my favorite bushes in the garden is call "Angel Face", they're quite fragrant and offer such a sweet aroma in passing.  We are not much different.  When Christ takes form in us we are his fragrance to the world (2 Corinthians 2:15) as it passes by and encounters us.  It happens in us the same way it does with the roses the as they lie pruned and dormant in my garden this winter.  As we let God work on the places in our heart that require his love we will be nourished and made ready to produce bountiful, fragrant blooms when the season comes for the sun to cascade its warmth and shine it light once again.  

So for 2014 I have the resolution to surrender to the shears when opportunity comes...albeit painful and hard, it alone holds the promise of spiritual beauty in due season.

What are the thorny gangly life-branches God may be drawing your attention to this year?

How can you open yourself up to his pruning work?

Spend some time imagining what a beautiful expression of his life in you look like once he has done his necessary pruning?