That winter splinterland

Twigs and even huge chunks of limbs heavily littered our local orchards in recent weeks. Producing apples, cherries, pears and peaches (and other fruit crops) isn’t all about blooms and harvest. It’s also about maintenance, which includes what may appear to be pruning so heavy that someone like me (unschooled in orchard management) wonders if the pruned tree will even live. This also happens in the winter, before the sap runs. The pruners put in cold, hard days.

The sight reminded me of scriptural passages about pruning and spiritual growth. One is James 1:2-4 (NIV): “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

A key word in that verse is “develops.” Spiritual maturity doesn’t drop into our lives overnight. We’re like orchards, needing pruning as we’re shaped into God’s optimum “fruit-producers.” The “perseverance” mentioned here isn’t the “grit-your-teeth-and-get-through-it” type of living, but a growing reliance on God’s faithfulness in life’s tough spots.

This process is called “spiritual formation,” for through spiritual pruning, Christ is formed in us. One key idea expressed in Klaus Issler’s book, Living into the Life of Jesus (IVP, 2012), is that this involves progressive steps. We’re not zapped with spiritual maturity overnight. As Issler describes the progression:

1. We begin by not seeing ourselves as having a spiritual problem

2. We become aware of our spiritual “gap” and are mulling over whether it’s really worth changing.

3. We’re willing to change, but wonder how. This idea of “depending on the Spirit” comes into play. We don’t know how to change, but He will guide us.

4. We commit to change. We may have setbacks, but we’re committed to keep going--with God’s help.

5. We see changes in our character.

6. We settle into a lifestyle with those changes. It’s easier to do what’s right.

One personal example was Issler’s problem with mild “road rage.” That included negative habits and language to express anger when things didn’t go as he wanted on the freeways of Los Angeles. (Personal note: I am a survivor of Los Angeles traffic, probably thanks to guardian angels galore!) After confessing that his problem of contempt for other drivers was a spiritual issue, he identified scriptures that addressed his problem. He then went into a season of letting God’s Spirit prompt him to respond peacefully every time a highway incident came up. Some months later, he realized a traffic situation no longer roused his anger.

Thankfully, spring follows winter. The blossoms come, and we’re reminded that the God who “prunes” us, sometimes severely, wants only His glorious best for us.

Divine fingerprints



One of last year's buttercup spots; the one
mentioned in this blog far surpassed this.

 Sometimes the love of God is very quiet, sent via sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch. I think about that every spring as we watch for the first buttercup blooms. My late mother-in-law grew up in a hilly rural area where the tiny yellow blooms proliferate. She led a type of family competition to see who could find the first buttercup of spring. As she aged and was moved into town, we made sure the first buttercups were delivered to her. Even as dementia set in, the tiny blooms brought a twinkle to her eyes. But one sunny, early spring day, just a year and a half before her death, her son (my husband) wheeled her out to the car and settled her in for drive to the orchard hills of her childhood roots. Rounding one corner, they came upon a whole carpet of yellow blooms, like a hint of Heaven’s streets of gold.

“It was like a gift from God,” my husband recalled. “I had never seen such a display.”

I thought of that incident in reading Klaus Issler’s book, Living into the Life of Jesus (IVP, 2012, p. 102). In writing about how we respond to God, he encouraged being more attentive to “God’s love initiatives” toward us. These might include “sunshine that warms me in a special moment, the cheerful sound of birds singing in the morning when I need that encouragement, a beautiful sunset that overwhelms me, a specific word from a friend that goes deep and a hug from a friend that puts flesh on love.”

He said it’s like these lines from “Aurora Leigh” by Elizabeth Browning (1806-1861):
Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries.

Besides what’s taken in through our senses, God can speak through circumstances and relationships. Issler sensed God’s love initiatives, for example, in a friend who moved him from being a hand-shaker to a hugger. Another was in spending time with his toddler granddaughter.

Jesus often challenged His listeners, “He who has ears, let him hear.” It’s not just our ears that teach. All the senses, even that “extra sense,” can lead us to realize, “God passed by here.” It can even happen on a spring-warmed patch of soil, pushing out a golden carpet with a whispered, “I did this to bring you My pleasure.”