Every teacher has that harbinger of summer’s end and the school year’s genesis. For me — as a teacher — it was the crepe myrtle. In mid-summer, the small, pink blossoms of the crepe myrtle trees bathe streets and neighborhoods in sprays of rich color. Then their blossoms rain profusely upon streets, cars, lawns, decks and porches. In the fall, their leaves turn a mixture of yellow golds and warm reds. When they fall to the ground, the naked trees stand like sentinels, their gnarled limbs and barks reflecting a ghostly white. Sometimes, landscapers become a bit extreme — i feel — and chop off all the thin branches and saw the thicker ones.
“I hate pruning!” I heard myself say this morning as I noticed the mutilated ones, stretching forth like arthritic hands with severed fingers. It seems so cruel to attack them that way. I know, I know, in the summer, their leaves will be more abundant, their blossoms more numerous and their color richer and deeper because of the pruning. But for now – the look of them against a gray landscape — is downright ghastly.
What do I look like broken from my troubles, practically impotent from my adversity? It’s downright depressing–indeed ghastly! But through my troubles and adversities I learn obedience. Yeshua learned obedience through the things that he suffered (Hebrews 5:8), through his own pruning! Someone — Max Lucado, I believe — said that God is not trying to make us happy; He is trying to make us holy! Pruning is the only way! He sees up ahead. He sees the abundant fruit that will be our harvest! He sees the rich color of a life fit for the master’s use!
Abba, we need your eyes, your vision! We hate trouble! We hate to be in it! We hate to feel it! But it is necessary! Let us think it not strange the fiery trials that have come to try us (I Peter 4:12)! We will be a blooming tree, the tallest in the garden. And all the birds of the air will come and nest in this full tree that subjected itself to the Lord’s pruning.
APPLICATION: Can you imagine how God sees you after pruning? What do you see?
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