Shaping and Pruning - Yard Work With a Twist

So the family did some yard work at my parents' house this weekend.

We were so glad to help them beautify their yard.  It has been a hard year for them with Daddy's fall over a year ago.

As is normal for me, I had some graceful moments with the rake - and made my Dad laugh - which was a good thing.  All in all, it was an awesome day of working together and seeing the finished product.

We did a lot of pruning.

A LOT.

Poor Steve's arms were so tired after it was done.  We pruned around 40 or so bushes at their house.  Let's just say it was a lot!

I began to "chew" on the pruning as I was leaning on my rake waiting for the next opportunity to have a graceful moment.  We had been trimming off excess growth on most of them as they had just gotten so out of shape.

Then, we came to this group of monstrosity bushes.

These bushes have been around ever since Mom and Daddy added on the sunroom and deck behind it to the house... the late 1970's.

Steve showed Wesley how to shape and trim them to give his arms a break.  Wesley went after those bushes with all his might....and we began to find that those bushes were quite ugly on the inside.  That green foliage on the outside was hiding what was really underneath!

In the picture below you are able to see how the green was really on the top part of the stem while the remainder of the bush was just woody and prickly.

We decided we were going to go drastic - we were going to go beyond pruning and we were going to take them down to the ground!

And that is what we did.  You can see Mikayla was helping get branches that Steve had just cut off.  It was good.  It was a freeing of that area that had become so crowded.  We couldn't believe the difference.

As I was standing there waiting to get in with my rake, I began to turn this pruning adventure into a reminder for myself spiritually.

How many times have I been just like the bushes we were pruning?

I have had times when I just needed a "touch up" of God's Word to get me spiritually looking right again.  There were other times I have needed a few more branches trimmed off the bottom to get me looking less bulky.

But then, there have been the times I needed to be cut down.  I needed a new start.

I began to "chew" on those bushes in the pictures above.  I was amazed at the symbolism I found in our spiritual walk with those bushes.  The Lord taught me much that afternoon.

You see, many times we look like we are growing in the Lord.  There is some new growth and we are pretty big!

However, when God begins to cut to the heart of the matter while He is pruning us and shaping us, sometimes He finds we have gone beyond just the normal pruning needs.

He begins to trim and He finds no green below the surface of our spiritual life.  In fact, one would wonder how the green came to be at all.  For below the green lies prickly, woody stems that within their heart bear no green - no fruit.

Just like those bushes looked big, pride can make us look like we are bigger spiritually than we actually are.  When the green is cut off, we see the prickly, woody portions of our soul and it is filled with anger, bitterness, hardness, callousness.... and I could go on.  We want to grow on our own terms and not in the way God designed.

Those bushes above had to be cut down to the ground.  They needed to start over - they needed to become something they were not - useful.  We then covered them with pine straw to face the winter ahead and are looking to see them come alive again next spring.  It was good.  It was freeing.

Sometimes in our Christian life, the Lord has to cut us down to the ground so that we can grow back healthy and more full of HIS life.

He is the Master Gardener and we must trust Him.  His prunings can be harsh at times, but He covers us with His love and when new life begins - He is there growing us in His likeness and not our own.  It is good.  It is freeing us from ourselves.

Pretty amazing what the Lord can show you about His truth - while doing yard work - with a twist.