Pruning the Prickles

I’m always glad when my annual task of pruning the roses is over.  Despite wearing leather gloves and long sleeves, I inevitably end up with punctures and scratches. I have to wash them quickly with soap, as I tend to itch and swell if I don’t. One slow bush at a time, I reach in to snip off a dead cane or trim suckers, all the time thinking of the “bowl shape” that’s best for rose health. This slow, tedious task also gives me a chance to think and pray for people in my life.

 The Bible says healthy spirituality mandates pruning. The most direct teaching about that comes with Jesus discourse about the vine and the branches in John 15. (As an aside: long ago in Bible school we had to memorize the main theme in each chapter of John.  I remembered “15” because the “1” looked like a straight vine and the “5” like a crooked vine needing pruning. That’s your freebie of the day!)  Jesus said the Father (the gardener) cuts off every branch that doesn’t produce fruit and prunes the fruit-bearing branches so they can produce any more.

The unfruitful branches are like those who’ve made a superficial commitment to Christ (most likely they show up at church and speak the “church language”) but don’t reproduce spiritually. The analogy to my roses is canes that are spindly with barely a weak bloom.  Off they go. I preserve the stalwart main canes and others branching off them that show promise of bearing flowers.

I also trim any sign of disease, a discernment that brings to mind to mind Galatians 6:1:

Dear brothers and sisters, if another Christian is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. (NLT)

Who of us is perfect?  But sometimes God needs us to step in to help someone who may be blind to a sinful  behavior or attitude. Someone recently told of an uncomfortable encounter when he could no longer overlook another believer’s negative, self-righteous behavior as a “grammar police.”  For years, that other person got prickly whenever someone used a certain innocent idiom in her presence. No matter if it happened in church announcements or at the store. You can guess how strangers felt when she got upset and “corrected” them. “Major on the majors,” he reprimanded her.

The passage says “gently and humbly” help that person back onto the right path. The cuts of the Pruner (and His helpers) may hurt, but the pain will be forgotten when those wonderful blooms come.

Trash talk

Oh, my, I thought as I listened to students in the busy halls of our town’s local high school. The air was blue—or should I say black?—with crude slang and irreverent uses of God’s name.  I felt sad for Christian teens, who had to live with that every day. I have the same sad-and-angry reaction in various public places when I heard language that disrespected or demeaned people or my Lord.  And then the pointing finger turned around.  Had I ever sinned with my mouth? Had I  verbalized thoughts fit only for the trash?

I appreciated how Priscilla Shirer dealt with that problem in her book The Resolution for Women (B&H, 2011). She quoted Luke 6:45 (Amplified):

For out of the abundance (overflow) of the heart his mouth speaks.
Our mouths, she said, are “only a barometer” that divulge whether we’re “immersed in humility or surrendered in obedience to the Lord.” What we say can also reveal if we’re “housing a malnourished spirit that stubbornly refuses to yield to the wisdom of God’s own Word.” A condensed version of her tests for a troubled mouth:

*Quick to offer opinions in any conversations?  Shows: haughtiness, need to impress or be at the center of attention.

*Constantly critical or demeaning? Shows: insecurity or uncertainty about your inherent value; angry, judgmental heart.
*Quarrel with spouse or divisive with others? Shows: lack of deep peace, need for Christ’s grace in strengthening relationships.
*Gossipy? Shows: failure to see troubled people as needing support, prayer, companionship.
*Negative (doubtful, skeptical) outlook? Shows: failure to trust God’s ability to handle wisely the details and timing of your life.

In all of these, the heart is a reservoir—a holding tank of the essence of who we are. The words that spill out reveal who we really are. If you’re a “PEW” person (Perfect in Every Way), you can stop reading right now.  If not, consider the trash can. It’s not just about cursing or variations of God’s name used like punctuation. It’s about controlling the tongue so it’s an “instrument of His peace.”  Or, as Proverbs 12:18 says:

The tongue of the wise brings healing.

Power check

 
My son is an electrical engineer for our local hydroelectric power company. As a techno-ignoramus myself, I have no idea where he got the genes for that. When the power goes out somewhere, he’s one of the go-to guys for figuring out how to sleuth out bad parts and reroute things so that somebody can cook dinner, a factory keep running, and the traffic lights keep sanity on our streets.

 “Power” is a password for our times: Power Point, Power Suit, Power Presentations. But “spiritual power”? We’re told of it in Jesus’ last words before ascending into heaven:

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

And it happened, just as He said. After ten days of intense prayer and waiting, the Holy Spirit empowered them in a dramatic way, sending them out to the streets to preach about Jesus (Acts 2). From then on, the New Testament is dotted with accounts and admonitions using words for “power” (dunamis, related to our English word for dynamite; and exousia, related to the idea of authority). The church age came in with divine strength and authority to preach Christ.

But we don’t always live as people of power. I appreciate the insight offered by Ruth Myers in her little book, The Satisfied Heart (Waterbrook, 1999). Her faith led her to a Christian college, where she met and married a great Christian man. They went to the mission field, had two great kids.  Then came a "power crisis." Her husband died of cancer, leaving her with two small children (almost 5 and 6). She saturated herself in Scriptures as she trusted God for the next step, and the next, and the next. In a chapter titled “His Love Liberates Me,” Ruth talked about even born-again Christians becoming aware of bondage to their backgrounds, resentments toward others, unbiblical goals, bad attitudes, wrong desires, emotions and certain ways of thinking. She noted:

But the more we know God and experience His love, the more free we become.  The longer we go to His Word and let His Holy Spirit teach us, the more liberation we experience.  More and more our personality is freed up to become as loving and beautiful as God designed it to be. (p. 166)

In other words, the power flows as it should, in abundance, and with power comes hope. “Hope” isn’t some out-there thing, but a tried-and-true provision of God. Ruth models that in writings that are soaked with scripture, revealing her lifelong, disciplined study of God’s Word. As Paul pointed out in his letter to the Romans: For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (15:4)

Paul really seemed to push “hope,” as later in that chapter he adds:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (15:13)

 So there it is: “hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” We can’t measure it like my son and his co-workers do the “zaps” that flow through our electrical lines. (Yes, I know that’s a primitive explanation, but I’m not a scientist.)  But our spiritual lives go dead without it.

Prayer power

A railroad track skirts one edge of the nature trail park where we like to walk. Sometimes, a train rumbles past, and my husband starts counting aloud the number of cars behind the engines. The more cars behind, the greater the engine power needed up front.

My first thought was of the energy I need for the busy days when I have lots on my to-do list, including the privilege of caring for a busy, curious toddler grandson. As a friend of mine likes to say, “I’m not complaining, just explaining.” I also thought about the prayer burdens so many of us carry. Historians tell us that the great Protestant reformer Martin Luther practiced long prayer before each day.  He reportedly said, “If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day.” 

Two hours! I'm no "Luther." But I do find time drags when I get bogged down praying for people with difficult issues. Yet, when I simply sit and praise God for who He is and thank Him for what He has done and is going to do, time passes without my thinking of it. The power of praise and adoration was also a favorite topic of Nazi concentration camp survivor and inspirational writer/speaker Corrie ten Boom. She wrote, “Be sure you remain covered with a canopy of praise.  It is like a tent over and around you. Satan has no entrance as long as you pin down the sides by praying, and thank God for His wonderful promises.”(1)

Admonitions to praise God go way, way back.  In her book Karen! Karen!, author/speaker Karen Mains quoted from a translation of one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, giving instructions for those living in the long-ago hermetic desert community: 
As long as I live, it shall be a rule engraved on my tongue to bring praise like fruit for an offering and my lips as a sacrificial gift.
As the scroll continues, it instructs adherents to recite the Ten Commandments morning and evening, and bless God's name continually as the day progresses, not just before meals. From life's daily rhythms, the writer moved to harder things:
When fear and terror come, and there is only anguish and distress, I will still bless and thank Him for His wondrous deeds, and meditate upon His power, and lean upon His mercies all day long. For I know that in His hand is justice for all that live, and all His works are true. So when trouble comes, or salvation,  I praise Him just the same.(2)

To borrow the train analogy, if I have enough “engines” of praise up front, it’s easier to pull the loads (“problems”) behind. Praise also reminds me that it's not all about "me pulling the load," but turning these concerns and "impossibilities" over to God. He's the Engineer and the source of Power,  not me!

(1)Corrie ten Boom, Her Story (New York: Inspiration Press, 1995), p. 446.
(2) Karen Mains, Karen! Karen! (Wheaton: Tyndale, 1979), pp. 148-49.