Pruning
I have always considered this a gardening term, and therefore stayed away from it. Gardening, though I love a beautiful garden as much as the next person, has never been my forte.
Many years ago I spent about a year taking care of a baby for friends of mine. They lived next door to this wonderful elderly lady who had the most amazing garden in the world. It bordered her entire back yard, and something was in bloom most of the year. Each day I would see her out there bent over, making her way all around the perimeter of her yard, lovingly pinching and caressing her blooms. She would take off the slightest dead bloom or leaf. I didn't understand then that the reason her garden was so beautiful, so lush, so perfect looking was because of how she pruned it. How she did not allow anything that distracted from it's beauty, it's perfection to remain. How she loved her flowers.
I have come to understanding the idea of being pruned as a child of God. All the many shoots that grow in me, that distract me from loving Jesus, need to be pruned. Mrs. Grathmore recognized this in her garden, and I have to recognize this in me. The danger, as I see it, of the Ten Commandments is how I can deceive myself that I am being good. I have not murdered anyone, not cheated on my husband, I honor my parents, I don't steal, you get the idea. The Ten Commandments are very broad strokes!!
The things I need to be pruned of are judgment, impatience, self-reliance, self-importance, all the "self" things in fact! The Lord has had to first teach me to recognize those things as bad shoots, and now I must allow Him to prune them from me.
My Heavenly Father wants the best for me, wants me to bloom for Him. I want to stay out of his way so each day he can lovingly bend over me and pinch off the slightest dead bloom or leaf! How HE loves me.