Our hearts and souls are like a garden. The outer person is a reflection on how well the inner garden is tended. The Midwest recently experienced a late freeze. Flowering trees and early plantings were severely damaged. For a garden to thrive, it needs the warmth of the sun. The garden of our soul must have the sunshine of the Son of God. Without the Light of the World the soul or spiritual man becomes a frozen wasteland. Not unlike CS Lewis’ tale of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where the land of Narnia becomes a frozen wasteland because of the curse. When one comes into the light of Christ there is new life. Spring has arrived. We become the “planting of the Lord . . . trees of righteousness” (Isaiah 61:1-3). We become God’s garden “that He might be glorified” (I Corinthians 3:9).

Without the care of the Divine Gardener our garden would become overgrown with weeds, wrought with disease, devastated by pests, and withered by the heat. A garden without a gardener would not thrive nor survive. God is the divine husbandman. But we must willingly submit and cooperate with His work in our garden. Jesus said, “I am the true vine and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit He takes away and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me” (John 15:1-4 NKJV).

God is faithful to prune us and cleanse us by His Holy Word. But we must read it, meditate on it, and obey it. As we fellowship with Jesus His very life flows through us as the sap of life flows through a grape vine producing fruit.

When I came into the light of Christ and received him as Lord and Savior, I became a branch of the True Vine. It didn’t take me long to realize that I had some habits and attitudes that were like stray shoots (gardeners call them “suckers”) that needed to be cut away before I could become healthy and fruitful. Pruning is not painless and it is not just a one-time event. But I am thankful for the Father’s pruning process because it produces a rich harvest of fruit in our lives as we yield to the Vinedresser.

Sometimes, like a vine, we fall into the dirt and get muddy. The vinedresser in mercy picks us up, washes us off, and cleans us with the water of the Word of God. He then ties us closer to the vine.

Don’t be like Mary in the old nursery rhyme. “But also for this very reason giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (II Peter 1:5-8 NKJV).