Pruning, Crushing, New Wine

How's that for a title? I mean who wants to hear about pruning, crushing except maybe the "new wine" part because Lord knows we could all use more of that especially with all that's happened and is happening this past year or so.

This morning as I was doing my morning devotionals from the book, "Pressing Pause" by Karen Ehman and Ruth Schwenk, today's passage was from Psalm 128:3 "Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house." The writer talked about the process of pruning away dead or overgrown branches. How vital it is to maintain the health of the plant because it affects the amount of sunlight reaching the leaves. 

Applied to our spiritual growth and health we all know pruning is a process we all don't want to go through but it's a necessary step to take if we want to produce the best fruit and experience growth. 

Rewind for a bit-- before I started my devotional I prayed for a heart that would not be hurried, that I wouldn't go through the motions, that I wouldn't make this time spent just be something I check off from my list of to-dos, that what I read and hear would take root, deep deep roots. 

Now back to where I left off, after I read the portion about the process of pruning the next sentence left me floored as the author wrote, "We must make room for the Son to shine so we can be properly nourished, grow deep roots and produce juicy, faith-filled fruit in our lives."

At that moment I felt God saying, "Helen, if you want to grow these deep roots, you need to prune out the dead weight in your heart, things that anchor you down. I will help you with that because I'm the greatest gardener. You just need to let me in and trust me in the process." What?! 

There's an element of surrender in the pruning process and it also takes time. In order to live the fullest He calls us to be we can't rush God with the process. I started reading a book called, "The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry" by John Mark Comer and there he wrote, "Love, joy and peace are at the heart of all Jesus is trying to grow in the soil of your life. And all three are incompatible with hurry." I may say "yes okay God do your thing!" but He was reminding me that this will not happen according to my time but in His perfect time.

As I'm absorbing, processing and reflecting on what God is saying the song, "New Wine" comes on from my playlist. Talk about timing! There's a part in the verse that goes:

In the crushing, in the pressing, You are making new wine. 

In the soil I surrender, You are breaking new ground.

Then simultaneously I got reminded of a scene from "The Chosen" where Simon's wife, Eden, was crushing the grapes to make wine. By then I was like okay God there's definitely a theme going on here and it's not a coincidence that He was driving the message in through three different medium, three times!

So not only do we go through the pruning process. Even after we've produced fruit there's the process of being crushed and pressed to make new wine. (Fun fact: Grapes are most commonly used fruit to make wine but any fruit can be extracted to make wine!). It all sounds like a never-ending downer but I'm going to get to the good part. In the bridge of the song it reminds us:

Where there is new wine

There is new power

There is new freedom

Then I proceed to ask God okay I have all this information but what do I do? Where do I start? Because I'm open and willing to go through the process. So I sit there and wait. Allowing Him to search my heart. I felt God bringing up the dead weight of doubt, the heaviness of second guessing, the debilitating fear of man and the oh-so-familiar one for moms--mom guilt. This is just the beginning of the pruning process and what is required of me is surrender. Trusting God in the process and believing that He is the best Vinedresser. 

I felt such a pressing (haha get it?) in my heart to share this because I think all of us need to be pruned. God doesn't want these dead, lifeless branches that keep us from experiencing the fullness and freedom of which He wants us to live!