Need rejuvenation?

Yesterday I was outside enjoying the early spring season and was trimming overgrown "burning bushes" (you know, those bushes that get all red in the Fall). I had already cut back one of the bushes last year, but decided that it needed even further pruning because some of the canes I had left looked too long and straggly. So I went ahead and cut those straggly ones out. What was left was a smaller bush - probably a quarter to a third of the size it was last year before I started the process - but much more compact and well-shaped. The next two bushes I tackled were a little different story. Because they were close to the house they had been repeatedly trimmed back so that even though they were getting some age on them they were not that big in size. But the way you could tell they were older bushes was the fact that they had some pretty thick canes (stems), some of which had actually died. I had the choice of contining to do what had been done previously - reducing the size of the bush by 10 or 12 inches - or do a more dramatic form of pruning called "rejuvenation pruning". This is a very severe form of pruning, usually done on older bushes, where you cut the entire bush all the way down to within inches of the ground. With the first bush there were enough younger canes that I chose to leave them and just cut out the older, thicker ones. With the next two bushes there were virtually no younger canes (the bushes were more compact and created too dense of shade to encourage new shoots), so when I was done cutting out the old canes it looked like there was nothing left! I say "looked like" because in actuality there were a few little shoots that had been trying to make a go at it but, because lack of sunlight, were not doing too well. Those weak, little shoots reassured me that indeed there would be new growth to replace the old. But even without such reassurance an experienced gardener wouldn't even think twice about doing this kind of severe pruning. As long as one knows the kind of bush you're dealing with - that it can indeed tolerate this kind of pruning - it's virtually impossible to kill it. It'll keep coming back, stronger than ever!



Needless to say, I was seeing some cool spiritual analogies while engaged in this process. To the unlearned or uninitiated, rejuvenation pruning looks way out of line. It doesn't appear to make sense to "butcher" a bush like that - it looks so ugly! But if you have ever driven through orchards or vineyards in the winter or after the trees and vines have been pruned and prepared for the coming season, those trees and vines don't look aesthetically pleasing. They've been severely pruned for one purpose and one purpose alone - to bear fruit. If you want a tree to be "pleasant to the eye", then you plant what would be termed a shade tree, and prune accordingly (to look more like an umbrella). But if you want a fruit tree to bear strong, healthy fruit, you have to open the middle of the tree up to get sunlight, which is what fruit needs to ripen and develop properly. The result is a mishapen, twisted looking tree, but one that can bear large, well-ripened fruit. Ornamental bushes like the burning bush don't bear fruit but they will, if left unattended, get overgrown with thick, woody canes that eventually die and become deadwood. These older canes make it difficult for the younger ones to come up and replace the older ones, so thinning them out from time to time, or doing rejuvenation pruning, gives the bush a new lease on life and prolongs the life of the bush.

I will leave to your own fertile imagination the lessons that can be gleaned from this, God's "second book".


"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener . . . you are the branches . . ."
(John 15:1-8)


"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." (Hebrews 12:11)

Getting Real III

". . .the fire of God's love . . ." is how our Native American friend recently described what he and his wife are going through with her many health challenges, as well as economic ones - as are an increasing number of people these days. How do we "get real" in such times? These Scriptures have been coming to mind:

When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai. . . To the Israelites the glory of the LORD looked like a consuming fire . . . (Ex.24:15,17)

In this [coming salvation] you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed . . . Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in the body is done with sin. As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God . . . "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him for he cares for you . . . For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God . . . (I Peter)

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched . . . you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly . . . See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks . . . At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens." The words "once more" indicate the removing of what can be shaken . . . so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our "God is a consuming fire." (Heb. 12:18-29)

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed, "Father, the time has come. Glorify you son, that your son may glorify you . . .". . . Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). Here they crucified him . . . (John 16:13-17:1;19:17-18a)

Getting Real, Part II

Life is full of mystery. And life is difficult. Add those two facts to your short list of things you can count on. I remember years ago, listening to Larry Crabb (well-known Christian psychologist) talk on Christian radio about how devastating the unexpected death of his older brother had been. As he worked his way through that extremely painful experience the main lesson he learned was that the only way to make it through life with one's faith intact was to find someone to trust in. All his Christian, biblical "principles" that he had so carefully worked out as a counselor that were supposed to help others failed to help him when he most needed them. He realized that the only way he was going to make it was to find someone he could completely trust, someone to lean on when he his own knees began to buckle.

This is the other side of the coin of getting real. I believe in a miraculous God and I believe we live in a time when miracles will increase in frequency. But I also believe that those who will see them will most likely be those who have gone through the wilderness, the crucible of testing and preparation. As that picture that is given to us in the Song of Solomon (8:5) indicates, it is when we come out of the wilderness leaning on our beloved that we will be close enough to his heart to do what is on his heart. Jesus showed us how this life in the flesh is to be lived - "I only do what I see my Father doing."

But getting back to the wilderness. Ah yes, how we hate the wilderness - that dry, perversly barren place! Other than death itself, I can't think of anything worse than having one's own nakedness and weaknesses exposed and highlighted. Physical pain is certainly excruciating, but a well-adjusted adult can find ways to manage it or dull it. But inward, soul-wrenching pain is what truly brings us to the end of our rope, to that place where, like Job, we cry out for God to either take our life or reveal himself to us and renew us. In the New Testament, this process of being brought "to the end of our rope" - and living there - is called "taking up the cross". Jesus made it clear that if we wanted to be counted as his disciple we would need to get used to this place on the end of the rope. Hanging used to be the primary form of capital punishment in our country. In the Roman world, it was an execution stake upon which the hapless criminal was impaled. We have sanitized it as a religious symbol, but in reality it was even more gruesome than the hangman's noose (try wearing that around your neck and see how spiritual you'll feel).

I've heard it said that the two most powerful beings in the universe are out to kill us. Resistance really is futile! Give it up. The best way to deal with God's attempts at killing us is to let him! The more you resist him the more drawn out (and painful) the process will be.

We all want to experience resurrection power; but to gain that we must

. . . lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
(Hebrews 12:1-2)

Are you ready to die? It ain't fun, but it's the quickest way to where we need to go.

Getting Real!

"Truth is stranger than fiction. That's because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities, and truth isn't." This statement was made by Mark Twain, an unbeliever, who was simply making an observation on the nature of reality. I don't know what kind of an impact this statement has on unbelievers - but to me, this is mind-blowing! This should shatter our Christian complacency and awaken us to "get real", to get in touch with truth (those of us who claim to have a relationship with him who said he was "the truth"). For too long we have been lulled into active unbelief, having developed a theology, or rationale, that serves to only protect us from admitting that we have failed, that we're not as spiritually astute as we pretend to be. One way I think this happens is by putting things in either the past tense or the future tense rather than fully engaging it as a present truth or reality. Take, for example, the following Scripture:

No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him. (I Cor. 2:9)

Are we supposed to wait until Jesus comes back to see that verse fulfilled? Or is it possible that God intends for us to at least begin to experience that reality in the present?

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph. 2:10)

"...greater works than [the works that I do] shall [he that believes on me] do ..."
(Jesus, John 14:12)

I don't know about you, but I am ready for the adventure of a lifetime! I am hungry for the truth, for reality! I'm tired of words, words that promise much but leave me empty. It's time to do less talking and more putting ourselves out there on the line, taking God at his word and obeying him. To me this is more than an attempt to radically apply "Biblical principles." It has to be personal. We have to be able to hear the voice of the Spirit in the depths of our being, speaking those words of life to us - words that, when obeyed, will transform and lead to those "greater works" that Jesus promised to those who would believe him.

Do you believe? Do I believe? Do we really?

It's time for us to get real.



"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified;
do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever
you go." (Jos. 1:9)