Pruning the deadwood (aka God is a gardener)

Our Kowhai bush was getting rather overgrown, and the cool of a summer morning, with a decent breeze, seemed like a good time to get to trimming.

First up was the sides and tops, trimming back the newer growth that was going to grow out to far into the driveway, and shaping up the rest so it was looking good and well-balanced. So of the top was hard to reach, high and far round the curve of the bush was a challenge for my not-so-long reach. This wasn't hard, just lots to it.

When that was finally done it was time for round the base. Many of the lower branches were growing scraggly, long and not woven in to the mass of the bush. One branch needed the pruning saw, sharply cutting it away right at the trunk.

As I cut away around the edges I could see into the middle of the bush. Dense and thickly tangled. The branches of this bush tangle together, looking much like thick matted hair. They weave in together, holding each other together as one large mass. However, they also hold in the deadwood. In fact, they held in a lot of deadwood. As the bush had grown, the leaves on the inner branches could no longer see the light, and the branches had died. On normal trees, the weight of the dead branch gradually weighs it down until the dry brittle branch breaks off and falls to the ground. Not so with this bush. The tangled mass held all the deadwood in and close.

We do the same. We hold on to what was once important and useful, but that has become a dead-weight, a hindrance. It becomes so tangled together that the light can no longer reach our centres, too closely do we hold on to our scars, our pains.

So I started clipping. Clip, clip, clip. I snipped at the dead branches, but when I tugged on them to pull them from the bush they didn't come. They were tangled so close that even when the branch was no longer attached to the bush it was still held close.

We can be the same. God, the gardener of our hearts and souls, comes with His heavenly pruning shears, comes to clip away the deadwood, and we hold it tight. We say, 'No! I need that!'

As I clipped and I pulled, as I snipped and I tugged, the centre became lighter, more open. Maybe, just maybe God's trying to do the same for us? Do you think? Maybe he wants to clear away the deadwood from our hearts, our souls, clearing space for Him and His Light to be at our centre.

"If a man does not keep himself in me, he becomes dead and is cut off like a dry branch; such branches are taken up and put in the fire and burned." John 15:6

"Cut off the branches because they don't belong to the LORD." Jeremiah 5:10b

God is the gardener of our hearts. He comes to clip away the deadwood so that there is room for Him, room for new growth in His ways.

He comes to prune away small things before they can grow too big and become obstacles, and He comes to prune away the deadwood which is useful no more and that we no longer need.


Will you listen to His voice when He comes pruning? Will you allow Him to cut away the deadwood in your life so that there is room for His light at your centre?