You Don’t Prune at Ground Level

I went to work for a landscaper after 8 years working in a plastics factory.

I was 18 and fresh out of high school and spent a few months after graduation looking for a job.

Jobs were a bit scarce locally back then with only a few larger factory type jobs available and they weren’t always hiring.

But the plastic factory ended up calling and away we go.

Met my wife there.

Had our first 3 kids while working there.

But… I was miserable.

Then our little town went through a 3 week evacuation due to a train derailment. The evacuation was needed because the train was hauling propane tankers and they all piled up right in town.

In 8 years I never had 3 weeks off in a row, and after the kids were in school I never even had 1 week off in a row.

So when, literally, the smoke cleared from the train derailment fires, we were allowed to go back into our homes.

As I walked back to my machine, upon returning to work, it struck me that everything was grey.

The walls were grey, the floors were grey, the ceiling, the machines, and the only color that could be seen was the yellow forklift going in and out of a white loading dock door.

What really struck me was after 8 years this is the first time I was aware of it.

And I said out loud, to myself, “You gotta get out of here…”

That next Saturday I was reading a local paper and talking to my wife in the kitchen.

I remember telling her, “I will only leave for something perfect and has starting pay of what I’m making now.”

She was not enthusiastic about it.

We finished talking and I turned to the “want ads” and on the second page, a local landscaper was advertising for a foreman.

I rang him up on the phone.

When he answered and I asked him about the ad, he said, “Oh, they were supposed to pull it last week. I’m considering not moving forward with that.”

I was let down.

But then he asks, “Are you Pete’s brother?”

Turns out he went to school with an older brother of mine and his younger sister was a class behind me… who knew?

He asked me to come in and interview.

We hit it off, he offered me a job, at my current wage and so I left the factory.

My landscaping know how was learned by helping my mom grow her gardens and working on farms as a kid, I kinda knew plants but didn’t know anything about retaining wall construction.

My first job was cleaning up a Dairy Queen that had mature plants and trees.

My new boss dropped me off, and left for another job.

When he returned the look on his face told me something was wrong.

So I asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Why is everything pruned back so far?”

Me: “You told me to prune it and clean it up.”

Him: “Yeah but this is a lot more than I expected.”

Me: “When I looked it over I could see quite a bit of dead and dying material and some wild growing limbs on a few trees.”

Also me: “It’ll grow back.”

He knew that, but today’s result was a bit more scraggly looking than he wanted. But when we came back for a general clean up it all looked really nice, the new leaves filled in and the plants were getting good sun instead of shaded out, and the trees were dried out from the good airflow I created.

So to joke around a little I said, “At least I didn’t prune at ground level.”

He said, very dryly, “Yeah, don’t do that.”

In the book of John, chapter 15, Jesus talks about Himself as “the vine” and God the Father as “the vine dresser”, and stating…

“He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”

And somewhere else he says, “things grow as God causes them to grow.”

Growing takes time, and as time goes on sometimes we grow wild; are spindly at times, and over grown at other times, we grow out of shoes, shirts, pants and… knowledge and understanding.

What we knew and served us yesterday is now too small and cramped of an idea to serve us today.

People today, especially younger people, have grown up with instantaneous digital experiences, creating instant gratification, but that is not how Gods systems work.

A whole day takes 24 hours to complete.

An apple tree won’t bear apples till he’s 5 years old.

And as we were born into a fallen nature, drawing sustenance from a fallen world, be glad God prunes you slowly, you may think losing a leaf or limb of a current idea hurts… until you notice the new growth in God it has brought about for you.