All in His time. Not necessarily in season!!

 28 February 2024

I have been reading John 15.
And also pruning my roses. 

One wayward branch had wound itself into my neighbour’s fence.
Fighting their way through the panel,were two young shoots,with fresh young leaves,bursting with every potential to bud!!! 

But if I do let it carry on, it would destroy the fence panel. 

I had to do something.
I had to choose. And I chose to cut it down. 
It broke my heart. 
So much potential,but in the wrong place. 

And I said,"Why Lord?" 
If only I had found it when it was a bit more tender, 

I could have pulled it out of the panel and tied it to the main branch. Too late.
This branch will not bud this summer. 

But it will next year, because it’s still connected to the main plant.

Till yesterday it had looked like it was going to bear a lot of flowers. 
And,it would have been this year!
It hurts me to see it looking barren. 
But it was for the larger good.

"...and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit." 

(John 15:2)

If any one of us feels like their hope for a fruitful harvest this year has been shattered, and if disappointed crushes you, please be encouraged that you are still part of the vine, who is Jesus, and he has allowed this pruning that seems unfair and untimely, but be encouraged that it’s for His larger purposes that we are called for, and we are safe in His hands. 

And in His time, you will bear fruit. 

Today you see the cut of the pruning shears. Next year you will see tender shoots, and a bouquet of flowers. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 

All in His time. Not necessarily in season!!

“Sing, barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,”says the Lord. Isaiah 54

"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me." 

 “I am the vine, you are the branches. 

He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

 

 If anyone does not abide in Me, 

he is cast out as a branch and is withered; 

and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

John 15