2005-02-03 - 4:55 p.m.
Been working on pruning muscadines this week. I go through the vines with a gas powered hedge trimmer first to remove the bulk of the canes then I'll go back over them with hand pruners to do a better job.
I never can do this job without thinking about when Jesus said He is the vine and His followers are the branches. He said that every branch in Him that bears fruit His Father would prune. We had a relative that grew some muscadines and when he saw how closely I pruned mine(I take off about %90 of the growth) he just looked at me, shook his head, and declared,"You killed them". It wasn't until the next harvest season that he changed his mind when he saw mine out yield his by almost double the amount.
I hear folks lots of times say things like,"Oh, I wish the Lord would use me more" and, "I really want the Lord to bless me." That's all well and good, but you're really asking for God to prune you. When He gets done removing the unwanted growth folks around you might just say,"Well, He's gone and killed you". You see, just like me God's not interested in a lush, pretty, overgrown vine. He's interested in fruit.
