March 29, 2011
Master Gardner
Last Saturday some of our folks had a four hour class and demonstration on pruning plants and shrubs from a Master Gardner. They learned such terms as restoration - cutting out the old growth and thinning; rejuvenation – severely cutting a shrub or plant back to the point that only about an inch of stock remains. I fully understand and accept that the Lord prunes believers, but I sort of had in mind a snip here and there. I wonder how many of us would welcome restoration and rejuvenation. Ouch!
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Gail;
-----I like to say that a person’s ambition for the immediate return of the Lord is directly proportional to his debt load. Of course, I mean it for laughs. But as with all good humor, it bears a kernel of truth. When at dinner with Simon the Pharisee, this little exchange between Jesus and Simon came up: “’A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he forgave them both. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘The one, I suppose, to whom he forgave more.’ And [Jesus] said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’” (Luke 7:41-43) I don’t think Jesus was necessarily stating a hard and fast rule, like a law of spiritual physics, because I have met more than a few people who have loved Jesus greatly and have lived their entire lives with much right purpose and obedience. But it is a good generality for the rest of us. Occasionally in my life I have descended into times from which I would cry out for the rejuvenation cut and then would find myself marking this branch for cutting clean off, that one for cutting back half-way, and another only to be plucked of a few shriveled leaves.
-----I think God is very careful about the pruning He does on our lives. Some of His carefulness is probably done out of respect and honor for our feelings, not that our feelings are either respectable or honorable, but more that He is so respectful and honoring in His patience and forbearance. But I think more yet, like the field of wheat laced with weeds, so much of the good in us matures while somewhat intertwined with the bad. Summarily chopping limbs at the stump will loose much good growing for the future, even though the deadwood and shriveled leaves are a burden to the present. Though at times I have been inclined toward frustration that God did not do a rejuvenating cut, I see attitudes and concepts I hold today that just wouldn’t be the same if He had. But who knows? Maybe they would be better.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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