who does the pruning and what's the point?

fa




















you may work in a barbershop-
you may know how to cut hair…
(Bob Dylan)

self-pruning is a lot like trying to give myself a good haircut… in my desire and effort to accomplish balance and realize or release inner beauty outwardly, i run the risk of taking a little too much off here in order to compensate for having taken a little too much off there…

in our earnestness or our lack of discernment, we can begin an intentional self-pruning process that eventually cuts away everything in our lives including the vine itself...
and the branch that cuts itself from the vine withers.
we are unable to self-sustain.
we must be fed and replenished.

so what to do?
if we self-prune we run the risk of cutting our own heads off, but if we fail to see to it that we receive this pruning somehow, we cease to bear fruit in our lives
and the bearing of fruit seems to be the point.

Jesus says we are not to worry. the trees of the forests and the grasses of the fields do not prune themselves, nor do they require conservation officers to attend to them- and yet they thrive in the environments in which they are placed. they live in complete submission to the Divine, and as such are exactly what the Almighty Vinedresser intends for them to be.

God is the gardener. what do we need to do become part of in order to allow him to truly prune us that we would be truly fruit-bearing branches, delivering the nutrients and life from the vine to the rest of the world…

remember that fruit is God’s distribution system for seeds.

scripture: john 15.1-6; galatians 5.19-25; matthew 6.25-30

words, music and pictures

Worship music is part of our preparation... It readies us for an encounter with God. It affords us a sense of sanctuary, a cleansing of the heart and mind from all distraction, baggage and fallenness that has attached itself to us, rendering us incapable of sensing the presence of God and experiencing a life-changing encounter with God that will fuel us into the coming days and relationships where we are to be, as Jesus said, salt and light for him.

A friend of mine made some observations about worship gatherings- in particular, those times when we are released from the imposed structure of the lyric in order to just sing and pray within the worship space:

I have noticed when the spontaneous song is released, so often that is when the pictures and visions are seen. It's as though when the singer taps into the song, the sound being released by the Father, those who see tap into the visual. There is a higher level of faith released corporately when we work together like this, we can go higher than we can individually and we see His creative words and ideas released corporately. There is joy in sound that enters my heart.
(Joanne Lepp)

During such a worship time in the small group I meet with, God gave me a picture of his person which I wrote down…

the man of darkened face, unshaven because he's been tirelessly working, covered in mud but smiling- delighted to see new life rising up through the soil. the field/garden is already green. he is not planting- he is tending to these new seedlings, able to recognize the weeds from the desired plants, but pleased to have them grow together for this time.

john 20.14-16
man didn't recognize...

it is the gardener that recognizes the plants, not the plants that recognize the gardener. the plants turn towards the light and the gardener makes this possible by tending to the garden....

regrouping

so after three months of heavy activity and nonexistent blogging, i've decided to change up my approach here- time to think outside the existing box. rather than post lengthy expurgations of the notes from my talks which just takes too long and is probably not the best use of my time or anyone else's, i'm going to move to something simpler, more direct and (we can only hope) more frequent...

it really helps, though, if there is discussion. that is much more interesting for us all, so leave a comment or leave a remark or take the dialogue in an entirely different direction- all of the above if you like.

let's regroup