How Pruning Can Benefit Us

At the end of winter I decided to cut back my raspberry bushes. I'm not entirely sure if that was the right thing to do, but it seemed logical to me. The raspberry bushes were on our property when we bought our home almost two years ago, and I'm not sure how long they had been there prior to that or how long it had been since someone took care of them. I wasn't sure what was old and what was new, so I decided to just cut it all back in hopes that in the future I would reap a greater harvest.

As I was raking out all the branches I had pruned and the dead leaves, I was reminded of how this is kind of what Jake and I have done with our finances. In some ways I feel like we have hacked back and hacked back as far as we can go in hopes of building a better financial future. We went into this process with some hesitation, facing a lot of unknowns, and we still don't really know what will happen next, but we are trusting the process to produce financial fruit for us. We knew that we couldn't keep spending the way we had in the past if we expected things to be different in our future, but knowing that didn't necessarily make it any easier to cut out restaurants, Netflix, or our vacation budget.

Another thought that occurred to me was how God prunes my spiritual life. Often times in order for God to really work in my life He has cut back or completely remove things that I thought I needed. While this process is painful, if I stick with it and trust in Him, I usually find that He is faithful to do a mighty work in my heart and life. Sometimes He even replaces the things I thought I needed with much more precious things.

It amazes me how often I am willing to hang onto the old, broken, damaged parts of my life for fear that I won't like what will happen if I allow them to be pruned back, but as long as I am unwilling to allow that process to happen I am missing out on the good things my Father in heaven has in store for me.

So, while I wait to see what comes from my raspberry bushes I will allow those newly cut-back plants to remind me of the importance of the pruning I need in order to continue in my financial and spiritual life.

Keep pinchin' :-)