I got in a fight this weekend.
I came out on top, but man was it a battle. I am significantly beat up and hurt like crazy, but I won. My body bears the lacerations of a man who fought a pack of angry alley cats, but it was something far more sinister with which I was contending.
I fought a very tough lilac hedge.
And let me tell you, this hedge was mean and nasty. It punched way above its weight, and it was huge to begin with: 70 feet long, 20 feet high and 10 feet deep. And some of the stocks were two inches thick. I had to use my chain saw, hedge trimmer and loppers to cut it back.
We took 15 feet off the hedge. I cut and my wife dragged the branches out to create a refuse pile 80 feet long, by 15 feet across, by 4 feet deep. You may think I am joking when I say it was a fight – I’m not. It was a battle in many ways.
Here was the problem: the hedge had fallen over so many of the outer edge branches were pointing horizontally. When I cut those off they now comprised thousands of spears aimed at me as I tried to press through them to get at the stocks on the inside of the hedge. As I was reaching as far as I could with my chainsaw into the center of the hedge to get those internal stocks, the stocks and branches at the edges would scrape and pierce every exposed piece of skin.
It was like trimming a 20 foot tall porcupine. My arms and legs are ripped to shreds.
Now, I have no doubt a number of you are reading this and asking, “Do you want a little cheese with that whine?”
Fair enough. However, this hedge beat me like a rented mule. I got so angry at times…I said words I don’t usually say. And, I said them often and loudly enough to be heard above the roar of the chainsaw. I even invented new words – none of which I can repeat here. I can only imagine what my neighbours must think…
Here is the point of all of this: we should have pruned this hedge a little bit each year, but didn’t. We let it grow unchecked for years thinking it would form a massive wall of lilacs, which it did. It did, that is, until it got so top heavy it fell over onto itself – never to be the same again.
We can be like that. We need regular pruning. We need regular corrections, adjustments and discipline that will enable us to grow straight and true. This “pruning” will also enable us to be fruitful and productive.
You see, pruning precedes productivity.
But, we often resist or avoid those ongoing regular corrections. We don’t choose to engage in the situations we can get that kind of input: conferences, workshops, seminars, retreats, meetings, coaching, mentoring, pastoring, counseling, house groups, close friendships and the like.
We oftentimes do not humble ourselves to receive the input of others, the ‘correction’ of others, so we can grow straight and true. We can choose to live independently and grow unchecked, like our lilac hedge, until one day we begin to collapse and wonder how things got this way.
In order to grow strong and fruitful we must choose to submit to others – we must choose to learn from others. Count yourself particularly blessed if you have people in your life who love you enough to say difficult things to you. Don’t get offended – get grateful and listen to them. The Lord often uses people in our lives as part of His disciplining (pruning) of us.
The Lord loves you and will prune you for growth and fruitfulness. Commit yourself to a life of ongoing divine pruning. If you resist what the Lord wants to do in you, you can end up like our hedge: nasty, weak and broken down. Pruning at that stage is no fun at all.
I wish we had pruned regularly along the way and not waited until it got to this.
And you will too.
Pruning always precedes productivity.
Proverbs 12:1
“Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but whoever hates correction is stupid.”
1 Timothy 4:7b, 8
“…train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”
Hebrews 12:5
“Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children? ‘My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline, but don’t be crushed by it either. It’s the child he loves that he disciplines; the child he embraces, he also corrects.’”