Hot summer days. We love our cool morning walks with our two Labradors. On one of our walks, I noticed a Wildland Fuels Reduction trailer on our neighbor’s property. Ah, they are cleaning up their yard, creating defensible space to thwart off the threat of any kind of potential fire. (Thank you, Carson City Fire Department!)
After surveying our own yard, we realized that Russian olive trees had taken over our woodshed area and the sagebrush was thriving. We decided it was time to clean up around the outside of our home.
We called Wildland Fuels Reduction and made an appointment for one of their trailers to be dropped off at our property. The plan was to clean up and thin out some of the sagebrush to increase the safety of our home; to get rid of the clutter, overgrowth, and prune some of the branches.
It took a few days of cutting and filling up two trailers with yard waste and sagebrush, but we did it. As we were going through this clean up time and whacking off branches, using pruning shears and a chain saw, I thought about John 15 in the Bible.
It says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me and you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” John 15:5-7
I’m so glad Jesus knows what to cut and how deeply to make the cut as he prunes “my” branches. I trust him and am thankful for his hand upon me.
I prayed and asked Jesus to free up space in my heart and soul – to unclutter and remove the stuff that can keep me from growing in my relationship with God and with people. That he might “prune” the areas of my life that are dead, and not productive; attitudes and wrong behaviors that can become hindrances in our walk with God. I asked God for a pruning that I might bear more fruit.
The holy spirit of God is our helper and will show us areas that need his touch. Confession and forgiveness, cleanses and refreshes, restores, and frees us. Perhaps something that once gave us comfort has become clutter in our life, and now it’s time to let it go.
But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23
Peggy Locke is co-founding pastor of Carson City Foursquare Church.
