Pruning…

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I’m pruning things lately that aren’t fruitful. It’s a constant balance in my desire to serve- I can get caught up in wanting to do so many things that I am doing too many, which leads to doing none of them well.

I am realizing I would rather cut back on the amount of things I do and focus on doing the things that I am doing well.  Even though many of the things I do I enjoy and are good things, they are not fruitful if I am spread too thin.

I am pruning. Pruning the branches in me that are not producing fruit- the shoots that spring up and need cutting back so that the others may grow and blossom. Too much activity chokes out the fruit that could be born if there weren’t so many branches begging for nourishment.

How do you maintain balance of the fruit you are cultivating? Are you focused on a few things and doing them well, or are you feeling that only a little bit of nourishment is getting to each branch? I want to produce fruit of quality and not just quantity.

We need to sometimes take a step back in our lives- whether it be in our families, our ministry, or in our homes…Assess what we are doing with our time. What we are doing with are treasure. What we are doing with our talents.

Are we bearing fruit with those things? Or are we using our time, treasure, and our talents to bear fruit? Or are we filling up on so many things that we do not use them efficiently? Are we producing too many weeds? Are our buds beginning to blossom, but then whither from lack of nourishment?

As I look toward spring and I admire the Master Gardner and His handiwork, and I eagerly await to see those blossoms spring forth from the ground and burst from the branches…I will focus on my own branches…carefully pruning, just as the One who teaches us through His Word says…

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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. 

John 15:2