The previous owners of our house were meticulous gardeners.  Either that or they paid a lot of money for a professional landscaper to maintain the lawn and shrubs.  When we moved in, the front lawn was impeccable- not a blade of grass was out of place, not a weed in sight.  And the plantings and mulch were equally immaculate. This summer, I’ve been doing my best to maintain things. But after six months of effort, the grass doesn’t seem quite as green anymore, there are some weeds and dead spots here and there, and the bushes definitely have more “personality” after my crude attempts with the hedge trimmers.  Making boxwood shrubs look perfectly round is REALLY hard.  Who’d have thought? They now look like sad, misshapen, homemade meatballs.  Oh well, there goes the neighborhood!

However, there’s one area of landscaping, that was out of control from the start.  Around the back of the house there are a series of huge arborvitae that have grown untrimmed and unchecked since the house was built.  After years of unimpeded growth, the second-floor windows are partially blocked, and the branches are pushing up against the siding and extending further and further out into the lawn.  Early in the spring, I took one down completely and now I’m getting around to the others.  I borrowed an extension ladder from the church and with my chainsaw, topped them off below the windows. And with electric hedge trimmers, I’m giving them a serious haircut. I’ve generated a pickup truck or two full of greens already and I’m not half done yet.

All of this lawncare got me thinking about how we grow in Christ.  Often when we think about growing to be more like Jesus, we think in terms of addition, about all of the things God wants to add to our lives- good things like, the fruit of the Spirit, Christ-like attitudes, goodness, humility, godliness and such. And it’s true. Like tending a garden, God is always planting, cultivating and bringing forth a godly harvest in our lives.

But growing in Christ also involves subtraction– that is, the removal of things that hinder growth. Like a garden, weeds must be pulled, and unproductive branches cut to encourage healthy growth.  We call this pruning. Jesus said:

…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 John 15:1-2

Now, this is key.  Sometimes, before God can add new things to our lives, he has to take away old things.  Like a garden full of thorns and thistles or dominated by overgrown shrubs, pruning is a necessary first step before we can experience health, growth and productivity.

In the book Becoming a King, Morgan Snyder makes this thought-provoking statement:

A thirty-year-old man is like a densely populated city; nothing new can be built… without something else being torn down.”

I think that is true in most of our lives.  Our “gardens” are already full to overflowing.  Our behavior is set, our thought patterns established, and our lives are overgrown with unproductive activities and ways of living.  There is simply no room for the Spirit of God to produce anything new.  And so, God has to remove the lesser so he can fill us with the greater.

Can you identify things in your life that need to go?  What needs to be pruned so that new growth can emerge?  Maybe God has you in a season of loss.  He’s taking away things you have depended on for your security and identity, and you are struggling. If so, don’t lose heart.  Pruning is necessary and essential.

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:11

God wants you to thrive spiritually.  And that involves clearing away old and unproductive ways so new life can emerge.  What needs to be pruned from your life?