Week Twelve: Beloved. Trust the Process

Today’s post, Pruning Hearts, from Melanie at Just Beloved, encourages us that abundance grows with trust in the One who loved us first.

Beloved:  Do you know that My love for you began in a garden? I delight in all things beautiful. All My creation testifies to that. The delicate smell of a rose or flower is the fragrant perfume of Me drawing you and wooing you with beauty and love. The delightful dance of the bumblebee and butterfly reflects My beauty as well; it is a dance of love.

When I planned your life, like a Master Gardener, I had specific intent and design to transform the barren landscape of your life and heart into a beautiful garden to reflect Me. But you have an enemy of your soul who seeks to creep in like unwanted weeds and pests and bring lies and destruction.

Since the Fall, there is now toil involved in tilling the soil of your heart and in your literal garden. When I come alongside you to trim and prune and cut away anything that robs you of true life and beauty, sometimes you’ve seen Me as cruel or harsh. You have not understood My ways. And when it seems as though you’re in a winter season where nothing is happening, can you rest in Me and trust? Do you not know that I am good and that everything I do has good plans in store for you? As I prune you, it is so you can produce an even more abundant garden or fruits for others to see My beauty and goodness. And it is ultimately for your joy and benefit as well.

Though you may not understand My ways, can you trust My heart? Yield to My pruning and in time you will celebrate and see the abundance explode forth: just like a spring and summer garden.

I love you My beloved, let Me prune your heart.

“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that I may bear more fruit.” (John 15:2)