Have you ever been in a season where it feels like things are being taken away from you? Maybe you didn’t get the promotion or job you were wanting. Or perhaps a relationship you thought you would be in forever didn’t work out or fell apart. Maybe you just feel lost or unsure of how to spend your time or there isn’t enough time and you’re overwhelmed and overworked and not understanding when things will get better. If this all sounds familiar this might be a season of pruning. Sometimes we hear that word and think of punishment. We hear cutting away and our minds go to the fact that God isn’t good. How could be if He is taking things away from me?
So how do we associate God’s goodness with things being cut from our lives? John 14:1-2 says… I am the vine and My Father is the vine dresser. Every Branch that doesn’t not bear fruit, He takes away and every branch that bears fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit.
I went to a winery a while back with my husband and I remember seeing grape vines that were 6ft long full of grapes and then there were 6 more feet of vines with just leaves and then about 20 ft of bare sticks. It was explained to me that the nature of the vine is that it will overextend itself to the point that it no longer can bear fruit. So you have to cut it back to the place where it bore fruit and it will put more energy into growing grapes again instead of just making a stick.
This resonated with me and over the years I have seen this happen in my life. In fact I have had a few things cut away again recently. This is a great example in our own lives. If we overextend ourselves beyond our personal calling and don’t prune or quit activities that are fruitless, we will use all our capacity and energy on things that don’t really matter. The consequences of this is that you don’t end up making anything of value in the end. We spin our wheels and waste precious time from our lives. This can even derail our destiny. The point of being pruned is not a punishment but is actually good for you. Yes, at times some of the pruning may feel like it hurts and how can hurting be good? But in the end if we trust the vine dresser, he will cut away the dead sticks and we will see new growth and see fruit like we cannot even imagine. God is going to make something beautiful out of us.
So at our Mighty Mom’s group this week the girls were asked to take a Tshirt and make it into something new and all they could use was a scissors. It ended up making a great illustration as I watched them cut pieces away of their shirts. In the end they all had something different but uniquely beautiful. I asked them to take mental notes and ask themselves if there was something in their lives that was inhibiting their growth that needed to be cut away. I am going to ask this of you as well. Take some time to ask yourself what is draining your energy and keeping you from being all you could be.
Let’s see what happens when we put a little effort and energy into making something more beautiful out of our lives by cutting away the activities or things that our holding us back from all we can be. Trust the Vine Dresser.
Be Blessed, Renee
Expressions of my heart 