I’ve been gardening and planting some vegetables today and as usual I am reminded of what you can learn about life by the simple task of digging in the dirt.
Near my newly planted veggie patch is a potted hydrangea plant which my Mum gave me to look after. It was my great Aunt’s hydrangea plant and must be decades old and therefore it’s kind of important that I don’t allow it to die.
However through the summer months my Aunts hydrangea has been looking decidedly sickly, wilted and not producing any fresh shoots or flowers at all. I decided to take some drastic action and examine why this plant wasn’t doing well and discovered that underneath the remaining wilted foliage was a whole lot of dead wood which nothing was ever going to grow from again. I cut as much of this unproductive wood away from the plant as I could and prayed I hadn’t killed it.
Today as I was gardening I noticed how a mass of new green healthy leaves was already filling the hydrangea pot and I realised it had never looked so healthy. Obviously cutting back that dead wood worked.
Our life is much the same. So often we are holding onto things which are the past, unproductive and just plain dead. They may at one time have been a benefit and even produced something, but now they only suck the energy and goodness from our life and nothing good is growing from that particular space. Primarily because dead wood is exactly that – it’s dead!
Today if you know you’ve been holding or carrying around issues, the past or things that don’t produce anything good in you I really encourage you to ask Jesus to help you cut them off and out of your life. Then trust Him to pour His power and love on the rest of your life so that you can begin to grow and develop to your fullest, becoming even more fruitful.
Jesus said, “I am the true grapevine and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you.” (John 15:1-4 NLT)
Prayer: Lord please help me to recognise those areas of my life that are dead and that I need, with your help to cut away or weed out. I want to be all that you created me to be and I ask you work in me today. In Jesus name Amen.
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