Prunes might be one of the most misunderstood fruits on the planet. First of all, do you even know exactly what a prune is? I mean, sure we all probably have at least an idea of what they are, but why do they seem to get such a bad rap all the time? It's just a thought. And as it turns out, I don't even care too much about prunes...I mostly wanted to introduce the topic of pruning. No, I'm not talking about sitting in the bath tub until your skin gets soft and wrinkly. It's a horticultural practice that involves cutting dead or fruitless branches and leaves from a tree or bush, for the purpose of revitalizing the plant's growth.
Orchard and vineyard caretakers have to be familiar with pruning their crops. Otherwise, each consecutive year will end up yielding less and less harvest from the plants that get older and older. The principle behind the pruning process is rooted (excuse the arboreal pun...) in the concept of shaping how a tree develops and grows throughout its life. When new branches and buds grow, the tips (called the apical meristems) produce natural growth hormone, causing the cells in that region to divide, as well as stopping cell division further down the branch. So, to make more potentially fruit-bearing branches and buds, arborists cut off sections of the plant at different junctions to force more branching. This way, every year a new spread of buds will form, producing the optimum amount of fruit on strong, healthy branches.
By now, you're probably wondering how I'm going to draw a spiritual perspective out of this. Well, before you ask, [insert succinct and pertinent segue here]. A disciple of Jesus Christ named John writes an account of Jesus speaking the following words: "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." (John 15:1-4, NIV)
For us to bear fruit in our lives, we have to trust that the Master Gardener knows how best we can grow, and that when He "prunes" us, He does so with the goal of our fruitfulness in mind. And now, please allow me to briefly mention something important here. The original word that John wrote that we now translate as "prune" (or "purge" in other versions) is the Greek word kathairo. It's a verb that means to cleanse of filth or impurity. In context, the word is pretty accurately translated as prune, but I just tend to be intrigued by the wording of Bible passages as they were two thousand years ago. The only thing I would point out is how important it is to realize that when God prunes us, He is removing everything that is disgusting, corrupt, and undesirable from our very being.
Here's the gist of what I hope you get from the past few minutes of reading this blog...that we can respond to God's pruning of our lives by incorporating several habits. In a very practical sense, getting pruned looks like this: being open and receptive to God's message, as well as to the people and events that focus you on God, to the challenges (both to you personally and to your fellowship) that purify us, and to the times in our lives when things that distract us are taken away. Sound familiar? It should, because it's the same reason that farmers take away pieces and lengths of a fruit tree or a grape vine; to allow the plant to redirect its energy into buds that will bear more fruit in the future, by purging the plant of bad branches.
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Author's note: These particular thoughts of mine were stirred by my dad, when I was home for President's Day weekend.
With all that's been juggled around in my head, I would need to write a pretty long blog to get it out in its entirety...so to spare you folks reading, I'll
Y'know what? No. I'm not going to make this blog note another "abridged entry". My apologies if you don't feel like actually sitting down for a few minutes with me (metaphorically speaking) and joining your thoughts with mine, but I really am going to fly, so strap yourselves in tight.
Bandages: they serve their original purposes well enough. But I felt like it was a waste of perfectly good white space not to use the medical tape on my hand for jotting down stuff I didn't want to forget. So here, on my palm essentially, I have two items written down for my convenience.
While I was desperately trying to fix the zipper on my Quiksilver hoodie sweatshirt, back in late September '08, God thought it was the right time to teach me something about Himself.
But before I get to that, let me tell you about all the great times I’ve had with my sweatshirt, just to put some context on my feelings now that the zipper's stuck:
+ my grandma bought it for me like 3 years ago, because she knew that my family doesn't have enough money to buy brand-name clothing
+ I wore it to school almost every day of the cold weather for practically my entire sophomore, junior, and senior year
+ this sweatshirt has been with me through my first job, youth group retreats, summer camps, family reunions, and even to Mexico
Not surprisingly, the wear and tear gradually wore away at the little tab attached to the zipper contraption, and finally the tab (not the zipper itself) broke off while I was zipping it up or down—I didn't realize it at the time—and now the tiny piece of metal is lying on the ground somewhere, hopelessly lost to the travesty of mortality.
So that's just a piece of the tight bond that my sweatshirt and I have formed. You could say that if it's possible to love an inanimate object, then this is as close as you can get. So imagine my frustration, despair, and general sense of sadness that I feel, holding the weak and wounded sweatshirt in my arms. Well, maybe not weak and wounded, but the zipper is definitely stuck without a tab to pull it with.
Nathan Snook (my roommate) joked, "Would you like a hand there?" Of course I didn't want his help. It’s MY sweatshirt, and he has no idea how I feel about it. I sit for several minutes, feverishly tugging and fiddling with the zipper, trying to open the sweatshirt so that even if I can't zip it up and down, at least I can wear it.
But the zipper just won't budge. It’s not even stuck in the cloth along the edge of the zipper edge like you might think—that would've been easy to fix. But for some reason, the metal itself is simply immovable.
So my reply to Nathan is, "No, I don't need a hand. I'm not going to give up on this until it's finally fixed again."
This is right about the time that I heard the Spirit of God. I didn't really hear an audible voice in my ears...I’m pretty sure that I do NOT have the gift of prophecy. But I can occasionally "hear" words in my heart, and that's how I’d describe how I felt God say to me, "Shane, do I love you more than you love your sweatshirt?"
What else can you say to that? "Yes, Lord, you probably love me like infinity times how much I love my sweatshirt."
And in the quiet of my heart, I knew what He was getting at. If God loves me more than I love my sweatshirt, then He will never, ever, EVER give up on me. And that's a promise that will never break.
Philippians 1:4-6 says, "(4) In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy (5) because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, (6) being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
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Author's note: Yes, this is another "rerun" of a previously-written Facebook note, but I think it's one of my better musings.
Tonight, I hadn't eaten dinner yet, so I mixed myself a drink (milk with Ovaltine, to be exact) and then saw my peanut butter jar from August. I decided that I didn't want to see for myself how long PB can last before dying, so I poured myself a stack of Ritz crackers onto my plate and scooped some peanut butter onto it, for dipping.
It was then, that the Lord struck me upside the head (it seems like He's been doing that more often than usual, lately) and showed me something about Himself. And don't worry, it's not that God is like peanut butter...that would be so cliche as to be unmentionable. Rather, God is like the preservatives in the peanut butter.
