Growing Seasons
Sara Carle / Office Manager, Administrative Assistant to Spiritual Formation, Congregational Care, and Missions
“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…this is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” John 15:1-8
Have you ever thought that you’re going about life and doing well at it? Have you ever thought, “Man, everything is great! I love my life. I’m handling my business. My family is good. I’m growing in my faith. Life is good.” And then God gives you a little nudge and shows you something, that you maybe didn’t know or remember was there. I don’t know about your response to growth opportunities from God, but mine usually comes with a groan, a whine or worse, an excuse. I mean, who likes change anyway, right?
I took some time today to look at my cactus that sits on my desk. At first glance, it looks good. I see some new leaves coming in, and a couple of buds like it might actually bloom (which it hasn’t done in a while). However, when I rotated the plant, I found a different story. Some of the leaves in the back had wilted to the point they were crunchy and falling off. Some of them are losing their green and they’re turning this sad yellow color. Some of them are thriving just like the front of the plant.
When I stop to think about it, maybe I haven’t been taking care of plant as well as I thought I had been. Maybe I had forgotten to water it a few times or let too much time in between waterings go by. I think life can be like that too. We think we have it all together and under control and then God starts to point things out in our life that maybe we have neglected a bit. Maybe it’s reading our Bible regularly, maybe it’s our prayer life, but maybe it’s about the way we spoke to that person the other day or the things we’ve been listening to or watching. I’ve always been an education-focused person. I don’t believe that we are meant to ever be done growing or done learning until we see Jesus. Perhaps that’s why I’m so fascinated by my plant.
But I think there are a lot of life lessons that we can learn just by watching something grow. Sometimes God needs to prune things from our life in order for us to grow. If I were to just leave those dying leaves on my plant and continue to neglect my plant, it would eventually ruin the whole branch of my cactus. That branch would continue to die off. However, if, like a good plant mom, I pruned the dead leaves off and watered my plant more often, it would rebound and continue to grow.
Someone once told me that if we are not growing, we are dying. Let that sink in for just a moment. I hope that when these types of moments appear in your life, whether they are small little nudges from the Lord or big, challenging life moments, that you’re able to take a step back for a moment to reflect on it, acknowledge it, accept that maybe you still aren’t done growing and then move forward continuing to grow. If we refuse to grow, we miss out on the opportunity for the reward. In the case of my plant … the beauty of the flowers that it produces. God wants all of us to produce beauty in our lives, as a reflection of Him, not us, but we have to allow ourselves to be watered, fed, and pruned by the Lord in the process.