Pruning

We have this row of crepe myrtles that lines the front of our yard.  Planted long before we ever moved into the house, numbering well over twenty, they’ve failed to produce blooms year after year.

Jake has trimmed and pruned, fertilized and watered, for very little reward.  We made the assumption they had not been planted in the correct location or with the correct spacing and thus have turned our attention to other gardening matters (hello, fire ants).

My neighbor down the street, green thumb extraordinaire and brimming with knowledge and helpfulness, was brave enough to approach me about the trees.

I told her what we had done and she shook her head and replied, “That’s not good enough.” 

She then proceeded to launch into a lecture on how to correctly care for crepe myrtles.

The method calls for far more pruning that we ever thought.  Much more fertilizing and trimming and mulching than we’ve ever done.

See, seven of them are over forty feet tall with branches you can’t wrap your hand around.

Her advice calls for walloping all of them off, save for two or three of the biggest branches, to thin them out and produce new growth.

These branches are in good shape.  The bark is smooth, the leaves are abundant and green.  It doesn’t make sense to sever what seems to be bearing good things.

Yet, they lack the distinct mark of crepe myrtles – the big, vibrant blossoms.

It will be hard, laborious work, hacking through these several-inches-around branches, but next year…

Ah, next year, what will be seen will be far greater than what we see now.

In the book of John, Jesus is recorded as saying, “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”  (John 15:3)

The full weight of those words cannot and should not be taken lightly.

These past few years, God has given growth in me that has borne fruit.  I can look back and point to specific goals met, deep heart desires given, achievements accomplished.

Yet, in these past eight months, he has slowly started taking his holy shears and started the pruning process.  What branches that had growth thick and lovely, he has sliced into.

When God tested Abraham’s faithfulness, God did not ask Abraham to give up something that was wrong, unholy or sinful.

Rather, God asked Abraham to open his hands to something that was good and right and holy.  Laying Isaac on the altar was calling Abraham to sacrifice his one and only son, who was long awaited for and a direct result of God’s goodness and faithfulness to Abraham.  To put it another way, this was a gift as a result of a prayer answered.

In a word, the shears went to work, pruning and shaping a branch that was indeed bearing fruit yet was not fully what it could be.

God doesn’t simply take what is good. Pruning is not punishment, but a loving act God does to us and for us.  His glory and our good.

I’m beginning to understand pruning is not a one and done activity.  Over and over and over, pruning must be done to tame, train and promote better, more vibrant, healthier growth.

God does holy pruning so that we may wholly produce what is lying dormant.  Every branch that is all ready producing good things, he lovingly guides so that they may produce more good things in a better way.

The crepe myrtles can’t blossom when they’re giving nutrients to something that should not be there.

So my neighbor will come over next week.  We’ll labor, yet not in vain.

And next year, it will be done again.