Today our host asked us to help clean up some of the hedges along the gate. So how did I spend my day? I was working in the garden at Eden. Yeah, that’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.
Naturally, with that being the context, my thoughts turned to what I know about gardening from the Bible. There was a sense in which I identified with man’s original vocation of gardener. I thought about what it must have been like to tend that first garden.
I also thought of my Grandma. She always had a green thumb, which I don’t think I inherited from her. But she always loved to show us around and point out the latest addition to her garden.
But ultimately, my thoughts turned to John 15. I read that passage earlier this week as part of my Lent devotional, and the picture of God as the vinedresser or gardener was where I felt like he showed me something new.
I think it’s pretty safe to say that if you’ve been a Christian for any length of time or attended your fair share of church services, you’ve heard at least one sermon on what it means to experience pruning at the hands of God, letting him cut away those things in you that are preventing you from bearing much fruit.
There’s nothing in that image that leads anyone to believe that the pruning process wouldn’t involve pain for the branch. Today, however, my perspective shifted as I gained some first-hand experience at how painful it can be when you’re the one holding the shears.
As I type this blog, my thumb is still sore from where the I got stuck more than once by thorns. I’ve also got a nice-sized blister from repeatedly chopping away at the overgrown hedges.
And for once, my perspective on spiritual pruning shifted outside myself, which is incidentally something I don’t do nearly often enough. I thought of what God experiences as he’s pruning us.
I wondered how often our prickly personalities or thorny attitudes cause him pain as he tries to get through to the root of our issues. I considered just how many times the thorns that pop up for my own self-preservation actually pose problems for the one who is trying to cultivate growth and fruitfulness in me.
And then I realized that pruning me isn’t the first time he’s endured thorns for my benefit. Scratches and scrapes from the garden aren’t the first time his hands have been marred for me.
I know I’ve written about this before, but it still astonishes me at how willing our God is to endure pain on our behalf. You would think that being God would mean that of all the beings in all of the created universe he would be the one who gets to be immune to pain. And if that’s what he wanted then it could have been so.
But instead he chose us. He chose the pain as along as it meant he got us as part of the deal.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
– Hebrews 12:1-2 (ESV)
Pain is part of pruning, but today I realized I’m not the only who hurts. God has promised that I will never be alone in my pain. He is right there, hurting along with me, enduring it all because he can see the joy on the other side.
So the next time you’re being pruned think of God in the garden with his shears. Submit to the hands that aren’t afraid of a few thorns, and trust that the pain will be worth it because he certainly thinks so.
