Letting go of your wild

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 does not bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless youe abide in Me.

John 15:1-4

Little did I know when I started this series of letting go, so I could say yes to God’ s call of let’s go, that it would be this process of epic pruning all the way to the stump at times, like a rose bush that has grown wild and untamed for years. It’s roots are good, but not everything that is growing is healthy. The bush has too many inconsistancies, growing in many directions, taking on a life of its own. If anyone has seen an unkempt rose bush, you know there’s potential for more fruitful growth, more flowers, and better direction. The bush has to be pruned back to its start, to grow it in a better direction, consistently kept up by its keeper. What I have learned in the last year, is we are like wild rose bushes when we grow our own way, despite being grown in the goodness of God.

We can be planted by God, watered by Him, but not allow Him to do regular pruning and upkeep of our soul. I think many times we think that by our good deeds, baptism of the Spirit, our regular commitments to church, and Jesus community that these are enough and by extension that we will walk on the path of sanctification consistently becoming more like Christ. Consistency in our walk with Christ is defined by our willingness to submit to our Vinedresser. I’ve found that without us seeking God with daily intention and looking for Him in moments of each day, we miss His touch on our encounters with the world around us. We miss His provision in the midst of loss, His blessing in moments of joy, His favor in hard fought victories, His pruning in moments of pain, His glory in places of beauty, His guidance in difficult decisions, His peace in times of trial, His patience in our struggle, and His kindness when we falter. We miss so many moments with God, that we lose the direction of God, running wild without Him. The Spirit of God desires to run wild with us and in us, leading us.

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

John 15:5

Saying yes to God daily means that the Holy Spirit does a regular pruning of our sinful souls when we abide in Christ, gently growing us in the right direction. We have to seek Him earnestly in our daily lives with an intentional heart. We can get caught up in chasing the look of a Christ like life without the intimacy of it. Intimacy is where God can intentionally grow us, and prune us in a more regular fashion. I think we tend to run off on our own instead and go, “I’ve got this! Thanks for everything!”, but that’s not what abiding in the Vine really looks like. God is really good at letting us grow in every direction, but at some point we meet His boundaries for us and that is where He reminds us of who we are and where we are meant to be going. God wants our total and complete dependency on Him for the direction of our growth, so He can grow us better in every area. Growth requires pruning back even the good stuff. With roses keeping them pruned regularly keeps the branches healthier so they can produce more flowers. God desires to take every single area of your life and make it better in a completely supernatural way that is so indescribable that the His glory shines through. Even Jesus needed continual communion with God in order to fulfill His mission on earth.

But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.

Matthew 14:15-16

If we look at Jesus before His ministry began in Matthew 4, He is led by the Holy Spirit to the wilderness place for forty days to fast and stand before God to prepare Him for His ministry. God called Jesus to Himself before sending Him out to bear fruit. Jesus didn’t just sit for forty days doing nothing, He spend those days in fasting, prayer, and communion with God. Was it comfortable, probably not, was He very physically weak and tired by the end, yes. At the end of this period we see then, after being built up in the Lord, He is tested by Satan, yet despite being weak, He is made strong, and resists Him. Then after this He steps into His ministry and bears fruit outwardly to the communities around Him. Christ’s time and testing didn’t end there; His complete reliance on the Father’s guidance and character was required right up until the end. There are many examples of Jesus’ reliance on the pruning, watering, and growth from God. In Luke 6:12 we see Christ rely on the Father to provide the wisdom for Him to pick the people of His inner circle. He seeks the comfort of God in the midst of loss when He receives news of John the Baptist’s death in Matthew 14:13. Jesus heals tons of people throughout scripture, Luke 5:16, in this case it is a man with leprousy; immediately after He leaves to commune with God to be renewed and restored in humility. Jesus could have easily run on healing many others, as we probably would, in His own pride, but He didn’t. As we know, for Him to live as He lived, continued humility was key. He sought this through the highs and lows of His ministry by retreating to God’s presence no matter what amazing thing He had done or sadness He experienced. There are many other instances of Jesus need for the direction of God, showing us how to abide in God, but these are just a few. Jesus’ life was no cake walk, He experienced the supernatural miracles we dream of, but also experienced loss to the greatest degree, and lived with His disciples everywhere inbetween. Somehow He managed as fully man to show us what a wild life with God looked like, never once did He run on His own esteem. He had a total and utter dependence on the Vinedresser. Jesus’ life is what we as believers could only dream of living, a wild ride with the Holy Spirit, ministering to thousands while staying in perfect harmony with God’s will. A completely fulfilling and exciting life, even with the difficult choices that He had to make along the way.

Somewhere along the line, we see life in our own way, and think God is done prepping us or teaching us for a while. We go it alone in a sense, never completely, but definitely running on some pride thinking ok, I’m ready, I can go my own way. The reality is we are never ready to go our own way because we live in an imperfect world, in sinful bodies who commune poorly with our Creator, if we’re honest. If Jesus who inhabited a broken body relied on the Heavenly Father for His every move, then why do we think that we have it right taking our growth in our own hands. When reality strikes us, we realize that maybe we are going about our ministry, family, relationships, personal growth, job, etc wrong. Jesus couldn’t do it, so how could we? Pride, yep, simple pride. God desires to strip us of our pride, so that we can see that whether we are in a season of joyful smooth sailing, transition, or a season of loss, we need Him all the same. We get blinded somehow thinking that we should have it all our way or that life should be easy and we only need God when it isn’t working for us. Wrong move on our part, God is equally in our corner whether we are in a constant struggle to stay above water or living through the most joyous season yet. His presence, goodness, and wisdom never stop pouring out, but we are capable of stepping away from the oil He’s trying to anoint us with or we are showing up with a cup thats too small. We are allowed to choose, but we many times feel like we can place anointing and favor upon ourselves just because something is good and He was blessing, when God has moved somewhere else. We don’t follow well. Or we are showing up before God with a kiddie cup with this expectation that He can’t turn our messiest and most painful situation into beauty and glory. Just abide, and throw your pride and small expectations to the wind.

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion– to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified. 

Isaiah 61:1-3

We are the planting of the Lord, called to be righteous and Holy, giving up our weedy and wild tendencies. Jesus showed us what an amazing and full life looked like without getting caught up in the weeds or growing off in some other direction far off from God’s anointing on His life. This sanctification process through the pruning of our wild is a refinement process, removing from you the baggage of your sin that will keep you from stepping from one place of growth to the next. The Father wants to rip out our pride by the roots; He didn’t plant a spirit of pride, He planted a righteous, holy follower of Christ. When you and I accepted the saving grace of Christ, allowing the everlasting life of the Holy Spirit to dwell in us, we accepted a new identity. As we walk by the Spirit, the fruit we bear outwardly to the world grows in number. The places you’ve always struggled, become less, and the direction of your heart begins to permanently shift in a different direction. Our sinful tendencies start to fade, and our walk with Christ blossoms. The darkest times we walk through become filled with the sustaining goodness of God, shaping us in a more beautiful way. We see the miracles that are possible, hoping in everlasting possibilities, rather than losing faith in God’s character. We begin to trust His character and His motives rather than judge Him by where we are and what we faintly see with human eyes. The seasons of transition no longer become a narrow hallway we want to escape but rather a laser focus on who God is, and where He is potentially pointing us. The joyous and abundant seasons become a place of thankfulness and generosity, not gathering for ourselves, but rather pouring out, just as God does for us. I know where I am, and its not a visibly joyous season, but I do know there is this invisible and supernatural joy I will abide in every day, even when I’m seen to the other side of what seems impossible. I will hope, be steadfast in faith, constant in prayer, doing my best never to show up with the kiddie cup for God. I will show up every day to the best of my reckoning to say YES to let’s go, no matter what is in front of me, and let go of whats hindering me.