Happy one year since I have failed miserably to post,write,chat,converse,babble,prattle, mummble jummble on this blog! I know, this is not something worth celebrating but hey better late than ever right? I was sitting in bed the other week in deep thought after wrapping up a good and much needed conversation with a good friend and all the sudden this urge to write just came over me. I was pleasantly surprised. I really thought to myself that wow I haven't felt the urge,want,or need to document anything in the past year, what has changed? So after fighting the urge to get out of bed at 12am and start writing, I took a minute to reflect over the previous things I have choosen to document here on my blog and came to realize that each post had something in common. Each post was an event that cracked my heart open, weather it was a little or big crack, a bad one or good one,that allowed words,thoughts, and feelings to seep out unto here.
Anytime I am faced with anything bigger than my own understanding ( which is pretty much always) I tend to run to my favorite verse.
To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.
- Ecclesiastes 3:1
And as I was reading over this last week, preparing for a very big season up ahead, something caught my eye; the next verse.
A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted
What?! Why? Why would you pluck anything that you planted?! That make no sense? Wouldn't you want to water and tend for something you planted? Why would there be a time to pluck it?
Maybe it refers to pluck something that is dead? Can you pluck a dead plant? If something is dead, its gone, you really cant pluck it right? If something has no roots how can you uproot it? Then it got me thinking.
How many things in our lives have absolutely no roots and are really dead things, yet still take up space in our lives, hearts, and minds? How many dead things do we have planted in us that do nothing more but simply take up room, room that can be used to plant a new seed. I have focused so much on planting new and healthy things in my life. Things like habits, words,actions,thoughts, friends, jobs, sacrifices, activities,trips, anything and everything good for me yet when was the last time I went through my life to pluck something out? And I am not just saying this metaphorically as a new "motto" to live my current season of life by. I mean it! What do I need to PLUCK out? What is taking up room in my life where something better can be planted? It is so much easier to pick up a new habit then to stop one. So much easier to start a new thing than to let go of the old. So much easier to plant and water rather than to get dirty and sweaty, plucking what was once planted.
And lets not mistake plucking for pruning. Pruning is merely just cutting away dead or overgrown branches or stems, to increase fruitfulness and growth. Plucking is the complete removal of something. It is to take hold of something and quickly remove it from its place. I have done much pruning in my life, God has done much pruning in my life but I am not sure how much plucking I have truly done.
And once we take the challenge to examine our lives and pluck things we have once planted, even the ones planted with good intentions, we have room for new things to be planted. And as I meditated on this verse over the last two weeks, the words of a dear friend rang in my ears. God can sprout something new in our lives, something that we never knew was there. And how unbelievably beautiful is that? That we never know what God is waiting to plant and sprout in us, if we only make room for Him to do so. If we only make room for His many blessings!
Happy gardening friends!
And may your compass always be pointing North!
