A little pruning

Recently life has been so up and down and seems to be traveling at the speed of light in about 5 directions. I have been sick off an on for the past two weeks, which has been such a pain. I hate being sick, except for the excuse to sit on the couch all day and the ability to watch shows like Oprah and Ellen. But the feeling, the lack of energy and everything that comes along with it is miserable.

So life in a billion directions, sickness, and just some hard realizations about myself has brought me to this post. It seems as though everyone I have talked to over the past two weeks is right in line with the Lord because they have all told me the same exact thing. Not knowing one another and not knowing that another person had said those things to me. It was such a surreal moment of realizing that the Lord was using the people around me to get a message through....Life is hard and we are not meant to be blissfully happy all the time because the work of the Gospel is a path filled with ups and downs.

A friend and I were talking about how I have felt depressed and not really engaged in life and she reminded me what is said in Philippians 1:6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. It was the first time I realized that this valley in my life is here to teach me something and for Jesus to make known that he will not leave me and that he is by my side forever.

Another reminder came while at work. Every Tuesday during staff meeting we have a time of devotions and this past week was on John 15.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² 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. ³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

   ⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

   ⁹ “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.

The message kept repeating in my head since Tuesday. My coworker that was sharing made a point during his talk that the road with Christ is not easy and we all have different scenery along that road, but it is the same road for all that have given their life to Christ. We are meant to come along side one another and encourage each other on this road not matter what the scenery is on our own path.  Life is not meant to be easy, I mean really who wants a life that seems to be neatly stitched together with no struggles, no victories, and not sense of accomplishment of truly surrendering. All of this brought me to the quote by John Piper "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him". All of these trials have shown me that life is hard, but if I am satisfied in Christ and my heart is fully in love with him, then the trials are still counted as joy. "You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore" Psalm 16:11.

I also really enjoy The Message version of John 15:9-10

I've loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you'll remain intimately at home in my love. That's what I've done—kept my Father's commands and made myself at home in his love.

All of this has reminded me that I am not alone in this journey and that this is the path that the Lord has me on. I know that it is not going to be easy, but I know that Christ is with me and that I can choose joy even on the darkest days because Satan has been defeated. I just take one step at a time toward letting go and giving Christ control and on those really hard days I just sing to myself "....And the God of peace will soon crush Satan..yes God will crush him underneath your feet!!" You know you all remember the song :) it instantly lifts your mood!