I had to watch a YouTube video first. I had never dead-headed a rosebush before, but the razor-sharp secateurs in my hand promised to make it an easy job. I watched the man on the video three times to be sure I had the process right. Grab the dead-head, go down to the first five-leaf shoot, snip.
My husband bought the knockout rosebush for Mother’s Day about six years ago, maybe seven. It was a small bush when he gave it to me—less than a foot high. Now the roses bloom well over my head. I’m not much of a gardener, but I’ve noticed the paucity of blooms this summer. Knockout roses are supposed to bloom continuously throughout the warm months, well into fall if properly maintained. That “properly maintained” part is the problem. I’ve done little to maintain the rosebush. Actually, I’ve done nothing. And it shows with a bush full of scraggly branches, multiple dead-heads leftover from last year, and few blooms.
Which is why I found myself standing next to the bush with a new pair of pruning shears in my gloved hand last weekend. Wary of thorns, I began the job of pruning. The severed branches and former blooms piled up on the ground at an alarming rate. Was I trimming too much? Would it grow back? Cutting the bush so it would produce more blooms? This feels very counterproductive.
Pruning, by definition, is the cutting away of dead parts of a vine or tree (or rosebush) so that fruitfulness and growth are increased. It does seem counterproductive to cut something in preparation for growth. But as the man in the YouTube video explained, pruning the old bloomed-out branches allows the bush to expend all its nourishment on the branches that hold new blooms. Pruning keeps the bush from working to sustain dead branches.
There have been few times in my life when I’ve been able to clearly see my proclivities to sin like I have over the past year. Perhaps it’s the time in quarantine. Perhaps it’s coming to the end of some big projects and finding mental room to reflect. Perhaps it’s the Lord answering years of my desperate prayers for Him to make me more like Jesus. Whatever the impetus, I’m seeing some hard things in my life and finding I must face them head on. Sins lurking beneath the surface of my heart have broken through the barrier of oblivion, and I see that I cannot continue in certain streams of thought and practice. To be frank, it’s been a bit demoralizing. The Lord is doing some much needed pruning in my life, and I’ll be honest—it hurts.
While the severed branches and dead portions of the rosebush piled up, I had to tell myself I was doing what was best for the roses. In order for the blossoms to increase, the bush must shed the dying and diseased branches. The same is true for believers who are growing in godliness. The recognition and removal of sin is a painful cut, but God uses it to produce fruitfulness in our lives. The severing of sin and the habits or practices that feed it will make way for growth in Christ. Though it is crushing to grapple with the amount of sin or its pervasiveness in your life, it’s actually a gift. Awareness and conviction of sin is God’s grace in your life. God doesn’t prune what is destined for the fire (see John 15:2). If He reveals parts of your life that must be removed for growth, you can be sure that He is keeping His promise to sanctify you. The pruning of our hearts is purposeful. Painful, but purposeful. We weren’t better off oblivious to our sin, dragging around dead vines and diseased branches.
When God, through regular Scripture and prayer and whatever means He deems necessary, reveals sin that we must put to death, we’ll feel the painful cut as we seek to remove it from our lives. Because we’re not as strong as we think we are, we’ll need to cut the path to sin, too. If your regular struggle is with entertainment (quality or quantity), you may have to severe your relationship with Netflix or the cable company. If anger is your bent, you may have to seek regular accountability for self-control. If unforgiveness is always lurking in your heart, you might need to have an uncomfortable meeting. If pornography is a daily pull, you might have to trade in your iPhone for a flip phone. If gossip characterizes your conversations, you may have to change the way you communicate with others. If your right eye causes you to sin, you may have to pluck it out. If your right hand causes you to sin, you may have to cut it off. Jesus was talking in extremes, but we know what He meant: do what it takes to cut sin out of your life (see Matt. 5:29-30).
These are painful cuts that cost us something, but they are valuable when they give us the freedom to be who we are in Christ and to not sin—even tread sin’s path. When we obediently work at removing the gateways to the things that promise everything but deliver nothing, we find freedom to look at Jesus more. Sin easily entangles, but when God begins to prune our hearts, we can see Him and love Him more. That’s the point of the pruning God is doing in our lives: to see Jesus more and to become more like Him. If He’s pruning you, He’s keeping His promises to you (see Phil. 1:6).
About a week after I cut off all the diseased and dead parts of my rosebush, my husband walked through the back door after work and asked if I’d noticed all the new blooms. I looked out the window, surprised to see a new profusion of red blossoms.
This is why you prune, I thought. For growth.
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That’s the point of the pruning God is doing in our lives: to see Jesus more and to become more like Him. If He’s pruning you, He’s keeping His promises to you. Share on XGlenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness (Crossway), and Memorizing Scripture (Moody). Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.