Seasons. Each has it’s characteristics and challenges. Things we love and things that we have to adjust to with the changes. In the farming world there is a season in which the pruning takes place. Cutting away healthy branches so that the plant / tree will produce even more fruit.
Our Master Gardener the Holy Spirit will also … prune us in certain seasons of our lives. That process could be us having to release / give away / sell and downsize certain items we’ve become too attached to. I could be a process of change in our physical activity that challenges us beyond with what were currently comfortable. It could be a change in our media intake, or food intake, or certain friends were to lesson our contact with. Pruning usually takes place annually in the farming world. So it’s not just a ‘one time’ thing. What’s the Lord been asking you to give up, give away, sell, or donate? Has He asked you to change one of your routines? Has he asked you to begin a new routine? Our spiritual growth and maturity have a lot to do with our obedience to His instructions and requests of us. The speed at which we grow will usually depend on the speed of our obedience. For a large and bountiful harvest in the future one will have to go through season of pruning long before the harvest ever arrives. That’s where our faith becomes involved, knowing He knows what He is doing, and we have to trust Him, so we step out of our comfort zone and launch out into the deep unknown.
In John chapter 15 Jesus talks about this process. It’s worth the reread and to ponder what the Master Gardener wants to prune in your life currently. Me? I want to have bigger harvests produced in me, so I KNOW that I am facing a rather large pruning process. I’m currently going through one now. It’s scary, painful, and exciting all at the same time. It’s not like I’ve never went through this process before, just that each time the level of severity always seems bigger and harder to deal with. But I’m going with it, and ‘stepping out of the boat’ and doing the Peter thing. (Matthew 14:28-33)
What’s He asking you to get ‘uncomfortable’ with?