A Necessary Mess

It’s Summertime and that means Project Time mixed in with a little play time, of course! This week, I decided to tackle my yard. If you know me, you know I don’t have a green thumb and yet I appreciate and yearn for a yard worthy to be on the pages of Southern Living Magazine. I absolutely LOVE flowers and budding bushes covered by a canopy of shade trees. I simply don’t have the money or the time in this season of my life to put forth the amount of time and energy it would take to create and maintain a yard like that. Today, I figured I could at least get the clippers out and trim up all the bushes, pull out hopefully half of the 100,000 weeds and prune the trees. It felt so good to make the decision to get the job done!

I enlisted the help of the boys and assigned my 12 year old son to do the final clean up. We would do all the pruning and he just had to rake it up and sweep up the sidewalks after we were all done. Never liking to do work, he complained as I expected. Well, that was his job and the fact that he whined so much made it even surer that he was not getting out of it!

It was a mess!!! Clippings flew everywhere across the yard. Sure, the weeds made neat little piles but all that was cut away, scattered! When all was said and done, nearly 4 hours later, the yard looked soooo much better. It looked cared for cuz it had been. It was no longer a jungle of dead or uneven branches. Maintaining it from this point on will be easier since the hardest part had been taken care of….until next Spring I am sure, when once again, the harshness and unpredictability of the Winter brings uneven growth once again and the need for a pruning has come once again.

I called my son out to begin his clean up job and if you could have just seen his face…oh my. You’d have thought there was confetti tossed in the wind and I had asked him to pick up every little piece! Nothing like a little overreacting! “Moooooom, there’s too much to clean up!” I replied, “Well, when there is much to prune, there will be much to clean up.”

God tugged at my spirit in the moment….a lesson being taught for me to reflect on His Holy pruning seasons with me. The longer we go without “pruning” the greater amount of work there will be to get done. And the more “pruning” that needs to get done, sometimes the messier things appear eventhough the end result is only achieved through this process. The mess made will be cleaned up in due time. There will be more to clean up after a seasonal pruning than that which is simply maintenance; therefore, the clean up time varies depending on what had needed to be done.

When God begins a pruning process on us, yes, it can look and feel like a disaster has struck our lives, we feel scattered and out of place. But we know that He will never give us more than we can bear and we know that all things work together  for our good and His glory. The old and dead must be cut away for new growth to have a place to bloom. Dead branches cannot produce fruit. It is dead. When it comes to cleaning up after a pruning, the amount of time and energy and prayer you put into it will determine how long it takes to clean it up. Depending on the pruning, there may not be much but I can tell ya that I have had prunnings that have taken a looooong while. I can’t help but think of a child getting a haircut. Even though the Barber is the One cutting, if the child wiggles around, it will take longer to finish the haircut. We can be that wiggley child and cause things to take longer than necessary or we can sit still and allow the process to finish.

First we must recognize the pruning, often we discount it saying “it’s just been bad luck for me lately.” One of the benefits of our constant fellowship with our Father, we know when He is in the Garden with us and when He has a project to be done! If we recognize the pruning, the quicker we can sit still for the pruning and start the clean up process until it is done. If we stand by ignorantly or in denial, we are more likely to feel overwhelmed and hinder the process as we stand there with hands on hips. How much quicker if we grab a broom and dustpan and say, “Okay God, I am ready.”

Then, as we wait for the pruning to be done, with patience in His grace, we clean up what we can, as we find clippings. I admit there are times where I get mad and refuse to sit still or clean up. We all know that anything ignored never gets better with time, but worse. We must be have patience through the process. Depending on how much is cut away and our willingness to clean it up, will determine the length of time it takes to move on!

Like my son, once he accepted the fact that this was his job, and once he put his energy towards cleaning and not complaining, he got closer and closer to a job well done. He set his mind on the task at hand and got it done. It could have been completed quicker, but he chose to stall at certain times. Had he set his mind on the task at hand from the beginning, he would have been able to go play with his friends sooner.

Is God trying to get you to sit still for a little pruning work in your life? Most people don’t talk about the tough seasons in a Believer’s life, especially ones of correction or pruning but I think it’s necessary!! We should not hide in shame or guilt in the refining processes. It is in the process where our character and spiritual muscles grow. Our flesh says it’s not until we have cleaned up that we are accepted and normal and strong again but I am here to tell you that it is in these moments where you find out who your friends are and who God is to you and what you are made of. Even though we may feel scattered, and our flesh weak, our spirit is growing stronger if we let it. How strong we are to accept the pruning, get accountability, be willing to share what God is doing, share our fears and feelings so that God may receive all the glory when the fruit comes. We are nothing good in and of ourselves. It is God who is amazing and holy and perfect!!!

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

Romans 5: 1-5

"Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

Matthew 26:41

Father God, thank You for knowing what we need. Eventhough it can be uncomfortable and sometimes overwhelming at all that seems scattered and misplaced, I thank You for Your grace that holds everything together in perfect harmony. Help me to recognize and receive Your correction quickly and Your pruning with patience so that the mess can be cleaned up and I can move on in a season of bearing more fruit!

Help us to be patient with hope in the process as You prune what You see needs to be pruned.  Holy Spirit, lead us on the path of less resistance, that we may stand strong, walking with steadfastness and assurance that we are headed to a more beautiful place that gives our Lord God all the glory. May we stand ready with broom and dustpan to clean up and a basket to gather all the gracious fruit to come! In Your Holy Name, amen.