HELEN SANDERS

8-23-2025

PRUNING

I have two rose bushes that I enjoy. One has beautiful yellow roses and the other has beautiful red roses. Because of the heat in Florida, I try to keep them well watered. A few weeks ago, I missed one day of watering, and the red rose bush was totally dried up and looked dead. It was a shock because there had been about twenty roses on it two days early. All the roses were dead and so were the buds.

I had a choice. I could pull it up and discard it or cut off all the dead flowers and branches and see if it would come back. Sure enough, it has done that.

The yellow rose bush did not shrivel up, but there were multiple yellow leaves on it. I knew they needed to be cut away to keep the bush healthy. As I cut those yellowed leaves off, I thought about the bush, and how unbeknownst to it, holding on to those dead leaves would cause the rest of the bush to become weak. Then the thought struck me from the Lord. 

We are often like that rose bush, holding on to “dead things” that are not producing anymore. Our lives are filled with that clutter, thinking that some day those things might be useful again. Closets are filled with “dead things” that we hang on to, often keeping us from going forward.

God is in the pruning business my friends. He wants us to submit to his pruning so that new life can come forth. Many are in the red rose bush stage where the fruit of yesterday is all you think about and are hanging on to things that were once fruitful but are now dead. We must submit to the pruning. We must let go of the things that are hindering new growth, and even if we are totally cut back, we must remember that there is life in the root and that fruit will come again. It might look different than it did before, but the cutting away will surely produce new life.

Let us not forget John 15:2 where Jesus said, “Every branch [you and me] that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth [prunes] it, that it may bring forth more fruit.”

Do not continue to hang on to things that God wants to cut away, or you will not grow. Let God have his way with the pruning.



Russell and Helen Sanders

Spirit of Life Ministries International, Inc.

www.spiritoflifeintl.org