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?

Pot-Stirring

Now God, don’t hold out on me,
    don’t hold back your passion.
Your love and truth
    are all that keeps me together.
When troubles ganged up on me,
    a mob of sins past counting,
I was so swamped by guilt
    I couldn’t see my way clear.
More guilt in my heart than hair on my head,
    so heavy the guilt that my heart gave out.

….Soften up, God, and intervene. 

Ps 40:12-13

A continuation of the previous posts beginning with "Burned out"

When grapes are crushed and the juices collected, the process of fermentation begins.  There are three important factors in fermentation: temperature, speed, and oxygen.  Other factors to consider are things like sugar, yeast, and stirring.  You may be thinking, “OK, so what does this have to do with soul formation?”  Well, it struck me how metaphoric this is to our own journey.

One thing about heat and speed, they strain and disrupt things!  Heat has a way of bringing things to a boil sometimes and It can be tempting to hop out of a “boiling pot”  of circumstances.  However, wine ferments into something good as wine makers consider the speed and temperature of fermentation. Staying in the process and letting it happen, becomes of utmost importance.  Staying in the formation process is of utmost importance too...buts its hard! As I stayed in the heart space of transformation, often I wanted to hurry it along.  Yet God kept reminding me of the song “Still” (previously posted).  The words have become my breath prayer…”Father you are King over the earth. I will be still and know you are God”.   I was learning to trust the “Wine maker”.

About this time I was preparing to speak to a group of women.  I remember thinking, “Lord, what in the world do I have to offer?  I have no business representing you right now!”  The speaking topic was "Jesus as the High Priest" during my research, I was reminded of the tabernacle and how the altar of sacrifice was set up – with horns on each corner.  The details had seemed incidental until then, but that morning, as I sat with God in preparation, those horns were all I could see.  My heart cried, “OH thank God for those horns!  No wonder they are there!  If it were not for those corners anchoring me down right now, I would hop off this place of sacrifice and be all the more glad!”...but not really.  I had reached a place where I could no longer enjoy the old wineskins that I once inhabited.  In fact nothing felt comfortable at the moment.  I couldn't go back and I did not see well enough to go forward; staying put seemed my only option.  Jesus, now the Great High Priest, stayed put too.  He never backed away from the cross.  He stayed through horrific circumstances and mockery.  HE. STAYED.  And because he stayed, his life is now available to us. The Sacrificial Lamb, was becoming my strength…in a weird way, “staying” was the only witness or testimony I had and that was just fine. 

However, circumstances were evoking reactions in me much like yeast interacts with sugars in the grape juice as it ferments.  Sin in me encountered sin in others and we crashed! Like little whirlwinds, it created stirs everywhere.  As the energy rose from the disruptions, my "fermentation" continued with involuntary response. As I worked to address my heart-the place from which these broken responses came-God began to change me.  This always takes longer than desired.  God has a much different timetable than we do and for good reason. 

 Sometimes wine makers try and speed up the process of fermentation by adding sugar to the wine. I wanted to add “sugars” to this soul-process too.  Things like blame sounded attractive because it would take the pressure off me and allow me to deflect the issue onto someone else.  At times I wanted to add a little “sugar coating” to what I saw in myself by giving it a nice spin of excuses or explanations.  The problem is that when sugar is added to fermentation it actually ends up slowing down the process because it can suspend what is already naturally occurring, then,  when the wine is poured and tasted, the flavors are "off".  When we choose to deflect or excuse our condition we slow down and suspend God’s formative work in us causing our "soul flavors" to be off ...perhaps becoming a little sour or bitter.  Staying in it and allowing the process to take place at the right temp and speed would allow for balanced soul-flavors - flavors that offer charitable compassion towards our self and others.   That's when we can "Taste and see that the Lord is good!"

So I began to name and own what was real.  It was hard and still is, but shackles fell as I did it.  I was not yet free but something was loosening up and as I encountered God's grace, the air didn't seem so thick around me.  Living with honesty became the oxygen that I needed to stay in the process…and I was beginning to wonder if this place on the altar was right and good after all….maybe.

The Crush

a continuation from previous posts....

"From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” – Luke 6:45

 When grapes are harvested they go through a process called crushing.  That’s when grapes are picked and crushed, allowing the juice to be collected.  As this season of silence continued on with God, there was introduced within me a “Crushing”. 

Through various circumstances that seemed to pile pain upon pain, God was allowing a weight to press into my soul like a mighty crush.  My heart felt like it was in a vice-grip! It was inescapable and remarkably difficult.  I wanted to run far, far away from this slow, methodical pressing.  As soon as one circumstance would give way, another would roll in without mercy.  Many of the circumstances that offered such renderings involve other people and as such, I cannot disclose many details.  Suffice it to say that there was a significant loss of friendship, reputation, and...well... pride.  Combine that with four years of intense insomnia, the passing of several loved ones, and a marriage  that was feeling the strain of it all (Much of these dynamics were shared experiences with my husband.) and you have for one fierce crushing!  I suppose many of you reading this have experienced something similar at times. 

When grapes are crushed usually parts of the leaves and stem are mixed in.  That means it's messy and not very pretty.  It takes a while to get “pure” juice, and by “pure” I mean the flavors are balanced and allow for some of the other elements to remain.  At first I did not like the juices that began to flow from this crush.  They were sour and full of sediment, but Psalm 51:17 gave me hope.

“My sacrifice, oh God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.”

I had to learn to trust that in this broken place - stems, leaves and all, God was accepting me. It was actually "more pure" to let the sediment flow to the surface.  Something tender and endearing happened as I embraced the sediment.  They were the remnants of something once loved...now shattered. It was "sacred-sediment" ...Only a fierce crush could pour forth such a response, because until then we don't pay much regard to our broken places and we believe we can manage them fairly well and keep them hidden.  Crushes force the hidden to the surface and sediment seemed to spew forth from me like a timed sprinkler!  I was often caught off-guard by my responses or thoughts.  Where was all this coming from?  As I was pressed and crushed one thing became clear...the only thing that can come from a grape are the juices that are held within.  “From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”...

As my heart poured forth in unrestrained words and thought God was near.  He held every prickly stem and bitter seed that made itself known.  He gathered my tears and carried my sorrow.  I can't honestly say I believed it at the time, but looking back I know it is true.

Martin Marty said,

“Brokenness and wounding do not occur in order to break human dignity but to open the heart so God can act.”

Through this fierce "crushing", God was opening my heart...