One of my favorite things to do on nice, sunny summer days like today is do yard work. I'm new to it all, so I'm just learning, but already I have a few potted plants, a weed-free lawn, and I'm starting a raised vegetable garden behind my house. It's been so much fun to plant new flowers and veggies in my garden and to watch them grow. Today I had some lettuce sprout up -- the first of all my plants to germinate -- and I was so excited by the growth that I saw, even though it was minute.
My yard did not always look this nice, though. When I moved in, it was quite overgrown, unattended to, and...well, dead. The bushes and trees were choked with dead branches, and would have died if I hadn't taken care of them. I cut a lot of the dead stuff out, and I wondered what might be left of the little bush once I was finished. But still, I knew that I had to cut that dead stuff out so that it could grow and flourish. In the end, I had an oversized pile of dead branches, and a very skinny, but very healthy-looking, rosebush standing before me.
This is a little bit like our lives, mine in particular. When we're apart from God, the Master Gardener (if you will), we allow our lives to become overgrown and malnourished. We may not see the negative consequences at first, but over time, they build and slowly choke out what was meant to be beautiful. Fortunately, God loves us no matter what we do or no matter how far we stray, but getting close to Him again takes serious pruning.
Like my rosebush, I had to cut off major branches in order for it to become beautiful again. We have times in all our lives where God "prunes" us -- times where He is cutting away at the dead stuff in our lives that choke us, and it hurts! I won't deny that. We are often left feeling vulnerable and unsteady -- but to the Master Gardener, we have returned to our natural beauty, and to the way we were made to be.
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