…random thoughts and experiences of a wounded healer.

My wife and I finally decided to rehab these planters in our back patio. For about three years, they were holding lifelessly dry, granular soil littered with the remnants of vegetative corpses. I don’t even remember what we planted – it definitely didn’t resemble anything we’d want to eat or admire.

So we refreshed it with new soil, planted tomatoes, basil and chives. We threw in a cosmos for pure pleasure. Amazingly, it started to grow again. I’ve never gardened much, but there’s something very cathartic about it. Maybe it’s just the fact that in the midst of life’s frustrations, there are things we do that actually work.

We were reading up on how to nurture the fruit; get bigger tomatoes, leafier basil, chivier chives. And everyone talks about the need to prune – cutting down the fruitless branches and the pretty flowers. But they also mention the need to cut away some of the fruit. Though overall you might get less fruit, the fruit in the end will be larger and sweeter. Essentially pruning is cutting away the good so as to strive for the better.

I know it can said for every season, but God has been doing some pruning. I grieve a little not being in a formal ministry role. I love working with people, helping them live/love better, drawing out latent potential. I’ve wondered a little why I’m not in a formal ministry assignment. I feel like at the ripe age of 37, I have enough experience to not to be overly dreamy, but young and energetic enough to keep taking edgier risks.

But God is making it clear that this season isn’t for that. And I feel a bit of the void. I’ve even noticed that my own relationship with God not being as “hot” as it has been in the past. It’s a little disconcerting.

However when I pray, I hear his voice. And God is asking me a few questions.

“Who are you without the title?”

Uh… good question. And…

“Will you love me even if it’s not your job to?”

I think a lot of pastors love ministry more than they love God. But God is taking me to task it on it; putting me to the test. I don’t blame him for doing so. He wants to see who I really am underneath it all. He wants to be sure that underneath it all is just one thing… Him. Him and me, Father and son, no more, no less.

He’s pruning. Taking away stuff that’s seemingly good… but nurturing something in me that may be better in the long run. Maybe I’ll be larger and sweeter? Or maybe my love for him won’t be as tainted with so much ambition and pride. And for that, prune away.

<John 15:1-4> I am the true vine, and 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. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 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.