Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.                                                                                         Jonah 2:8

I’m no gardener.  Both my parents have some giftedness in this area.  It isn’t genetic.

I know this about myself and, therefore, approach horticulture with much trepidation.  I love beautiful flowers, I love the gorgeous plants that flood my beds in the spring.  But I have absolutely NO idea how to keep these same plants doing that year after year.

I have Vanilla Strawberry Hydrangeas in my front beds.  They are incredible.  They get huge and so heavy they end up lying on the ground. After they die they just turn a dingy brown and hang there, waiting for someone who knows what to do to do something with them. That someone doesn’t live at my house.

This year those beautiful blooms just hung around until yesterday.  I knew they had to go and I really want to see them again in a few months, so I had to do something.  Google.  That’s what I did, Google.  Google said that I needed to cut those suckers off.  Google actually said I should and could have done it long ago.

I didn’t exactly prune them, it was more of what they call ‘deadheading,’ I just cut off the old blooms.  I did prune some of the others more severely though.  Before I made that first cut, I hesitated and said to myself, “Please don’t kill these!  Do I really have to do this?!” The answer was so clear and so fitting for all of life within and without of that flower bed:

“It’s my way.”

Forget the former things; do not dwell in the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?                                             Isaiah 43:18-19

Those blooms were absolutely breathtaking in their day!  They, just like the fame and infamy of the Israelite’s exodus, were phenomenal things to be treasured and told of for generations.  But our desire for the beauty that has not yet been revealed should so surpass our delight in the beauties of yester-year, that we should ‘forget’ them by comparison.

As I look out at my ‘winterized’ garden, my primary delight needs to be in the hope of the spring to come rather than in the visions of the days that have passed. In order for the new to come, however, the old must be allowed to go.  We have to be willing to cut out the old and dead.  We have to be willing to let Him trim and prune and deadhead.

I trimmed about four kinds of plants yesterday.  One was my Abelia.  Abelia can get a little whooly, but they are quite attractive if you can keep them reeled in.  If you trim the outside parts of an Abelia, for every one cut, the plant will replace it with three.  They shoot way off of the plant, multiply, and leave the center empty. An Abelia you must prune on the inside.  You have to cut right down at the soil.

One plant needs to be shaped on the outside.  Another has to be cut deep in the heart.  Sometimes cosmetics work to accomplish the long term goal, but sometimes you need to go much deeper.

If we want to be big and beautiful and flourishing year after year, we’re gonna need some pruning.  And it might get a little deep up in here.

If you never cut out the old, if you never trim off those wild unruly shoots, if you never shape the edges, you just aren’t going to have the prettiest flower on the lawn.  It’s His way.  His way is to trim off the old, His way is to shape and mold and train us into all the glory we were designed to express.  His way is that we let go of the old, forgetting even that which was astounding in it’s day, and perceive the new thing that God is blooming today.

You know what happens if you cling to this incredible flower forever?  It still fades.  And you may miss out on the new one that would have bloomed in it’s place.

God’s growing something beautiful today.  Do you not perceive it?