Aaron shares his thought for the week on pruning.
This is my bonsai tree. I got this tree for Christmas, and surprisingly it is still alive! But when I got this tree, it had leaves that came out to around here. You couldn’t see any of that trunk. It probably looked a bit more like a small bush, if we’re honest, when I first got this tree. And so I was wondering how do I look after this? This isn’t quite what I thought the bonsai tree would be. But how do I look after it?
And so I spent some time on the internet, looking on YouTube and I found out that I had to prune my bonsai tree. Now when we talk about pruning, that takes us straight to John 15, which is Jesus talking about the Father being the gardener. It says this,
I am the true vine and my father is the gardener and 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.
John 15:1-2
And there are a couple of things that I now understand about pruning, thanks to this bonsai tree. The first of those is I had to reveal the shape of the trunk. I had to take away the bits that made it look like a small bush. And there are sometimes things in our lives, areas in our hearts, where actually this isn’t there to glorify Jesus. This thing in my life doesn’t glorify him. We’ve been talking a lot in church recently about consecration and setting ourselves apart. And part of consecration and part of setting ourselves apart is saying to the Lord, “Lord would you prune those areas in my life that actually don’t glorify you, that don’t big you up, that don’t make you look good?”. So that’s one thing about pruning. I had to be involved in revealing this nice trunk that’s there, otherwise you’d have just looked in as a bush and revealed these sort of pads and stuff. And that’s to keep on top of.
The other thing about pruning is actually when we prune, it encourages new growth. There are some areas on this plant that actually have a lighter green colour where I’ve pruned it and are now new areas of growth. And it says in John 15, “so that it will be even more fruitful.”
Sometimes there are bits in our hearts and in our lives when the Lord would say, “would you allow me to prune this area because I want to encourage new growth in another area of your life?”. There might even be things that were good for a season that the Lord told you to step into. And yet now he’s saying, “I want to cut that bit off because I want to allow what I have for you next to flourish.” And it’s not going to flourish if you’ve got your time and energy stretched over a few different places.
Perhaps you’d like to join me in this prayer for the Lord would prune our hearts, that he would come and prune us.
Lord, I thank you that you have called us to be people who have consecrated before you. And Lord, I pray that if there are any areas in our lives, Lord, that don’t glorify you, Lord, that you would prune those areas. Lord, that you’d come with your shears and you would cut those bits off. Lord, reveal those areas to us. And Lord, also in those areas that you want to encourage us in new growth, Lord, would we actually, hands off, allow you to come and do whatever you want to do in our hearts, in our lives, and come and prune those things so that we can allow you to do the new thing that you want us to step into. In Jesus name, Amen.
Every week one of our members shares a short thought aiming to inspire you for the week. You can watch previous Thought For The Week videos by clicking here.