The Master Gardener
My garden starts out beautiful every spring. It boasts lots of color and variety. White button flowers, purple and pink tulips, yellow daffodils, and peony buds the size of giant softballs mingle together to make a spring masterpiece. However, by mid-summer, my garden looks overgrown and in need of some care. I know I need to trim back runaway branches, but pruning bombards me with anxious questions. How far down do I cut? What little buds might sprout along the stem if I leave it? If I cut too far, have I destroyed future flowers? Thus, in my desire to have more flowers, I end up with scraggly stems and overgrown plants.
Pruning can appear to be harsh and destructive, but when you prune carefully, the plants look healthier and are more fruitful too. The past few years I’ve been watching a gardener work in my neighbor’s yard. Twice a year, he comes in and trims the plants way back. The first couple of times I thought it would take years for the plants to grow back. I shook my head and thought my neighbor must be grieving the loss of her beautiful garden. But I was wrong! This gardener knows what he is doing. The garden grows back after each pruning even more beautiful than before. It turns out that pruning is good and produces a healthy, vibrant garden.
Pruning is good for us too. It may seem destructive and we may cry out that too much is being taken away, but God is the Master Gardener who knows exactly what to do. His pruning is not random. He knows us intimately and knows exactly what is necessary to create beauty inside each of us. He prunes with love and purpose so that we might produce abundant and healthy fruit.
Thus, I humbly offer Him my overcrowded and tangled branches and ask Him to lovingly cut away all that is unnecessary and unpleasant. I commit to trust Him, believing He knows what I need. I determine to sink my roots down deep into His word and declare His promises to be trustworthy and good, faithful, and loving. I trust my Master Gardener.
Lord, I am thankful for Your pruning that transforms my heart. I trust Your hand, knowing You prune in love and will tenderly cultivate good things in me. I offer empty hands before You, trusting that the best is yet to come.
