This Sunday at church the pastor touched on John 15 and being a fruitful vine. To be honest I don't remember much of what he said but one line did stand out to me. He said, "We need to let God be the gardner." It resonated. Then I forget about it.
Thankfully God doesn't give up when we forget revelation and quickly brings things to our attention again. During worship at Bethesda House this Monday I again felt God speaking to me of abiding. John 15. This time He said, "It's time to give up your spade. Why don't you let me be the gardner?" The revelation began to take root.
So often I try to fix myself. I attempt to tend the garden of my heart on my own. Constantly looking for bad seeds and weeds to uproot. My heart is full of them and I often see them in my life, "Jillian you are so judgemental. Jillian you could be a lot more grateful and less jealous." and I try to fix them. In essence that's not bad - we are suppose to be aware of our sin and to desire to have it out of our lives - but awareness of sin is meant to lead us to Jesus. What I do is recognize it and then grip my garden spade harder and try to dig the nasty weed out myself. It's exhausting. It doesn't work.
It's time to give up my spade.
It was never mine to hold. Jesus died so He could wield it.
There is a part in C.S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader that has resonated deeply since the first time I have read it. I was never specifically sure why it stood out so much but I have read it over and over again since then and it is starting to make sense. It is when Eustace has turned from a boy into a dragon and is trying to get rid of his dragon skin. This is what it says:
{{But the lion told me I must undress first. . . .
I was just going to say that I couldn’t undress because I hadn’t any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that’s what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe. But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that’s all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I’ll have to get out of it too.
So I scratched and tore again and this under skin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe. Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good. . . .
The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. . . .
Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off — just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt — and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me — I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on — and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again. . . .
After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me . . . in new clothes.}}
I am Eustace.
I try to take my own skin off (weed my garden) but end up doing it over and over again. Only Jesus is strong enough (can dig deep enough) to get to the root so that it never returns. God clearly states in John 15 that He is the vinedresser. Not me. It's His work to prune the bad branches and mine to obediently give them up knowing I will be more fruitful without them. "Apart from me you can do nothing."
Thinks I have always known in my head are starting the journey to my heart. Lord let me daily give up my spade and let you do the pruning.
