Gentle Reader,
It’s Friday (kind of)! We link up with Lisa-Jo (but this week Tonya is guest-posting and it’s awesome)! We write about: hands.
Go.
The Lord doesn’t speak to me in an audible voice. There are no burning bushes. No directions to build an ark. His voice is quiet. It is an impression on my soul. Yet it is authoritative. He says something, I respond. I have to. I’ve learned the hard way that ignoring Him leads to no good end.
Last night, as I was on the verge of breaking down, I opened my journal and began to pour out all my confused, twisted, rambling thoughts and feelings. I was ready to sob. Ready to scream.
Ready to cave in and give up.
“John Fifteen.”
Two words.
I flipped open my Bible and read:
I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. – vs. 1-8 (NKJV)
God the Gardener. God the Tender of Tender Flowers.
In His hands, He holds the shears. He knows when and where to cut. He knows what needs to be gotten rid of and what needs to be delicately cut back so that it will produce more. Abundantly more. Flowers weeping rich fragrance. Fruit full of juicy goodness.
His hands, His beautiful, nail-scarred hands, hold each green, pulsing stalk. He considers them. He looks them over. And He cuts. Precisely. Significantly.
Never to dampen the plant. Never to break its spirit.
To make it grow.
Stop.
Pruning hurts. I won’t tell you that it doesn’t. But knowing that God, the Creator of all things, knows the plan backwards, forwards and inside out; that He knows exactly what to throw away and what to cherish; that He works within, around and through me to make me into exactly the person I am supposed to be…that gives me comfort.
To read all the posts in The Detox Diaries series, go here.