Beauty chronicles 101, so two of my nails broke in the middle less than 2 days after making them. Am sure most of the gentlemen reading this will be like, what’s the big deal cut ‘em off already? But for us ladies, making our nails is part of our regime and yes, we know that they can’t stay perfect forever, but we don’t want them broken immediately, do we? So, the resilience in me thought that I would just try to file and buff them instead of cutting ‘em all together, what I realized was that they kept hurting me more because they are no longer strong, but weak and at any slight touch, they hurt me more.
For most of us, we all have a type of beauty regiment that we like to carry out. The men will go to the barber shop once or twice a week and even those who have dreadlocks, will still have a wash day, or do a retouch of their dreads. For the ladies, let’s not even mention the number of times we take care of our hair whether we’ve put chemical to straighten it up or its natural, braided, or short hair, we all want to look good, feel neat and tidy. However, when we trim our hairs at home or at the salon, we remove the split ends that are weak or broken for the hair to grow back healthy and strong. The same it is for nails, we cut them when they are weak to enable them to grow back again stronger than they were before. The opposite is true, whenever we don’t trim that which is weak and brittle, we have stunted growth and remain the same.
In our Christian walk, there comes a time whereby we go through some sort of trimming, which the Bible calls pruning in order to produce more fruit. Jesus talks about this in John 15 and puts it in a clearer perspective, “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the Gardener.1 He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruits, and He prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.2 ‘To prune basically means, to trim by cutting away dead or overgrown branches or stems especially to encourage growth’ (Oxford).
Ask yourself this question, what are you still holding onto that needs to be pruned so that you can produce fruit? I believe the pruning that God does, comes through trials, testing and everything in between that comes your way. Testing doesn’t always come the way we might expect or want them to, but they still come. You disagreeing with another person doesn’t have to bring enmity, it just teaches that we all have different perspectives which we need to respect. The problem comes in when we don’t want to accept our mistakes or learn from them, and we look at life from a perspective that everyone’s wrong and we are right – we need pruning in that area. Or take for example those of us who are still double dipping into the cup of the world and still claim to be saved. Well for what I know, every time I have tomato sauce on one side and chillies on the other and I keep dipping this into the other, that which was sweet becomes sour and that which was sour becomes sweet to a certain degree. This is what happens when we don’t want to let go of what we used to do in our past and try to bring it into salvation to make it look ‘cool.’ God don’t need no help being cool, He’s the coolest guy there ever will be – the greatest of all time like literally. I mean He gave up His Son to keep you alive and save you from death and you’re still debating whether you should keep going for worldly parties and indulge in debauchery? This is exactly what Jesus is talking about, there are parts of us that need to be trimmed so that we can keep growing into what God designed us to be.
What about those who have grown, and their branches are now overgrown to the point they get too comfortable in salvation, thinking they know it all! Well, we also need to be pruned so that our trees can keep producing fruits year in year out and not have a holier than thou kinda attitude! The first step into pruning begun when you gave your life to Christ, “you have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you.”3 But it doesn’t stop there, Jesus says, “remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed (cut off) from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.4” Anytime you go away from God’s presence and His Word then you cease to be fruitful and become stunted in your growth as a believer. The instructions are clear, I am the vine (Jesus); you (put your name) are the branches. Those who remain in me and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.”5
When we don’t learn from our mistakes, when we cling to what is evil in the sight of God, when we see things from the world’s perspective and not from God’s then we cease producing fruit and we are left wondering what is happening with us. There will be times when you feel in your spirit that God is not there with you. Fact is God will always be there, we are the ones that move further away from Him when we allow sin to control us. 1 John 1:5 “God is light, and there is no darkness in Him at all,” darkness in this sense is sin. God is pure, sinless, blameless, and holy, in Him there is no iniquity and so every time that we sin, we are the ones moving further away from Him, but He stays put. His Holy Spirit will convict us when we go rogue and it’s up to us to confess and ask for His forgiveness, which He is always so willing to give.
What are you holding onto that needs pruning? Just as a broken nail can hurt you when you don’t completely cut it off, the sin that we hold onto can and will take you to hell if we don’t bring it to the attention of our Saviour for Him to deal with it by pruning. “Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.”6 You might think you’re having the time of your life and you don’t need God for anything, well, truthfully you are just withering away and wasting precious time, which if you don’t repent, you will take yourself to eternal hellfire where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The choice is yours, choose Jesus, choose life! Remain in Him and bear much fruit.
Blessings!!
Cynthia Gitonga Blog 