It is too cold just now and of course I have no strength, but already my thoughts turn to late winter pruning. I will ask my doctor in a couple of months if I can return to yard work after a year of prohibition due to health concerns. The honey suckle is intoxicating with its delicious fragrance that wafts across the yard but it is voracious in its growth. If not pruned, it will quickly overshadow the garden and the pear tree in the NE part of the small orchard. The fruit trees and grape vines, similarly need pruning or they will not produce as much large and delicious fruit.

Jesus tells us of the value of pruning in John 15. In this parable he describes himself as the vine, his followers as those branches that remain attached to the vine and God as the gardener. Of course the branches only bear fruit if they remain attached to the vine and even these must be pruned in order to grow more branches and produce more fruit.

In the same way, we must stay attached to the vine, abiding in Christ, if we expect to bear much spiritual fruit. And also in a similar fashion, our lives must undergo a certain amount of pruning that we can produce the fruit we were placed here to produce.

When we prune the branches of our grape arbor, it looks pretty scrawny but it benefits in the long run when spring buds appear. We notice a significant change in our lives when we undergo personal pruning and the unproductive and unhelpful activities and thoughts of our lives are pruned away. But their absence makes way for a much more useful one. Just as grape vines and fruit trees are not meant just to produce more leaves, so our lives are meant for much more than an abundance of activities and possessions.

Galatians 5:22-23 tells us the fruit we are expected to produce are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Do you find any of these offensive? Of course not. Who wouldn’t want to bear more of this fruit in their lives? But how do we do this? By pruning away the excess in our lives and staying connected to the vine, throughout each day.

And the good part is that you don’t need a doctor’s permission nor wait til the end of winter. What needs to be pruned in your life? Negative thoughts and behaviors? Excessive habits and activities aren’t necessarily bad but you if find they distract your attention from your real purpose and diminish your love, your joy, your peace, it is time for pruning.

Let’s pursue love this year, and peace and all the rest. Lt’s pursue it with such diligence that pruning is welcomed to obtain what we most deeply desire and what is beneficial to those around us as well.