Pruning Season

This is a painting my 2.5 year old created this morning. Isn't it beautiful? I'm pretty sure this is the most magnificent masterpiece of all time.

Anyhow, it was confirmation for a topic the Lord was pressing on my heart yesterday: pruning season. If you follow me on Facebook of IG you know I've been writing a lot about the resting season, but God also downloaded something to me yesterday about the pruning season.

As I was outside yesterday weeding my flower beds I felt the Holy Spirt press into my spirit that I am personally in a pruning season and really, so are all of His children. That's right, the church is being pruned. It sounds tough and scary and hard, doesn't it? But that's just what the pruning season is. It's meat to trim away the excess, the dead things, and the unnecessary thing. The pruning season removes the things that cause death and choke out life. The pruning season is necessary and while it sounds hard, it gives way to life and produce even greater fruit.

Merriam-Webster defines prune in these ways: to reduce especially by eliminating superfluous matter; to remove as superfluous; to cut off or cut back parts of for better shape or more fruitful growth.

Y'all, in this season, where things are being cut back and weeded from our lives, the Lord is using it for good to create us into "better shape," for "more fruitful growth." You just have to lean in and give way to the pruning.

John 15 New International Version (NIV)

The Vine and the Branches

15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

When I first returned home from Africa in 2014, the Holy Spirit spoke to me about starting a blog. As a result I did. I started it, but I let it go. Also in 2014, the Lord started downloading to my soul that He wanted me work in prayer ministry. I started, and I still do so -- I work in the Healing Rooms at my church and I'm on the altar ministry, but over the last few years that Lord has been showing me specifically what that ministry would look like, and how it must not be confined inside the walls of the church, so I've started an online prayer group. In 2015, the Lord spoke to me about writing a book. I've thought about it a lot have never had the "time," to actually sit down and start. Y'all, that's a lie from the devil. I have time. Just last year a friend was talking to me and the Holy Spirit spoke to her and told her to ask me this: "When are you going to write that book?" Y'all, its been almost a year and I still haven't started. And so here I am, (re)starting a blog, diving into a prayer ministry, writing, and doing the things the Lord has asked me to do for years.

The Lord has used this time of uncertainty for good in my life. He has pruned (and is probably still pruning) all of the things from my life that I allowed to stop me from doing what He has asked me to do. And honestly, there is so much freedom, joy, and peace in this pruning season for me, because I know I am actively jumping into His perfect will for my life (Romans 12:2).

In this pruning season the Lord is simply asking us to be faithful with the little (Luke 16:10). Faithful with the little task, faithful with the little start, faithful with the little yes. I know in my heart, if we are faithful in this pruning season, the Lord will produce MUCH fruit. And so I want to challenge you today to have a tough conversation with yourself and the Lord. What has the Lord asked you to do that you've been putting on the back burner? In this pruning season, dive into it. There is time. There is anointing, and there is greater fruit for you to bear, if you will only just obey and abide in the Lord.