I have never known how to garden, nor have had a significant
interest to learn. I usually kill plants that are in the house, because they
don’t let me know when they are thirsty, or too hot, or being invaded by bugs.
We have someone who works in our yard and who keeps things looking pretty good.
So, I didn’t think I needed pruning shears.
But two days before Christmas, a man who had done some recent
landscaping at our house came to visit to see how the plants and flowers were
looking. As we walked around, he would often remark that he should have come
sooner, or it wasn’t growing as he hoped, or wondered why the gardener had let
some things grow so wild. I felt ashamed of how some things looked, even though
I was not really responsible. At one point we observed that a certain plant,
the Bird of Paradise, was covered by snails and slugs. After remarking how
destructive they were, he asked for a spray bottle of concentrated salt
solution. He kept tasting the solution and asking for more salt until he was
satisfied that it was strong enough. The effect of the spray on the snails was
immediate – they began disintegrating and dropping to the ground. (A small part
of me was sad for the pain they were enduring, but I realized that caring for
one plant required the destruction of something else. Something like the Circle of Life.)
Now I knew what to do when snails invaded a plant. If I
could learn that, I could also learn how to care for the other plants, one by
one, little by little. I also wanted to learn their names, as I had done with
the birds in our yard several years earlier.
So Jim bought me my own gardening tool. Pruning shears by
which I deal with plants one by one, little by little. I remembered several
months earlier when we were at our home in NY tearing out the dead limbs and
cutting down the bamboo that was invading our yard. It was hard work, but I
discovered I enjoyed clearing out what should not be there so that what should be
there will be stronger, healthier, and better looking.
You can guess the personal spiritual application in all of
this. There are places in my soul that are ugly tangles of dead or destructive attitudes,
thoughts, and habits. Some I have let remain because I didn’t know what to do
about them. Some I can’t see by myself, but others can. Some I am not sure if
they are good or bad, similar to a gardener deciding if something is a plant or
weed.
Now, God is the Gardener, and does the pruning in
my life (John 15). This requires me to not fight Him when He cuts things out or
kills the destructive “snails” that feed on my life. However, other passages
suggest that I have a more active part to play in the pruning process. Hebrews
12:1 exhorts me to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so
easily entangles”. While this is written in the context of running, it can also
relate to the weeds, snails, and dead and diseased branches that I should
remove myself.
Pruning, whether done by God or by myself is painful,
embarrassing, and a bit scary as I wonder if it’s the right thing to do. But oh
the final result is worth it. The real me as God intended begins to show
through. New growth comes more quickly as the diseased parts are removed.
Our garden in Kenya was designed and planted about 40 years
ago, and continues to bring beauty to our home as it is tended, improved, and
pruned. I may even learn how to care for my plants both inside and out, and
enjoy it! I’m 60 and intend to live some more years on this earth and into
eternity. The Gardener and I will always have more to do.
So, bring on the
pruning shears.
