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These last few months have been a season of "pruning." I don't know why I continue to be amazed that whenever I try to really surrender, to really remove from myself everything that is not pleasing to or of God, that God does nothing less than swoop in and start pruning. Like a master gardener finally given access to an over-grown garden and a pair of pruning shears, He takes to my soul and therefore the rest of my life, with gusto. Its also amazing (though it shouldn't be) that even what could be seen as the smallest of things take on the greatest significance when being pruned by the Master. Equally amazing is how I seem to fail so miserably at just letting myself be molded. Letting myself be the overgrown shrub in need of attention. I suppose this is where humility comes in. In a way this is also one of the many things God was teaching me. Its easy to want to be the rosebush. To want to be the prize of the garden show. (Is the metaphor getting tiresome yet?) But God isn't asking us to be those things. "Be perfect, just as our Heavenly Father is perfect" doesn't imply that we have already achieved perfection. It implies that we have to strive for it. Christ didn't come for the perfect people. He came for you and me and the rest of sinful humanity. That's why we need to be pruned.
With Lent upon us I can't help but be thankful for this unexpected but much needed season of refining. It reminds me that Lent isn't about what we are giving up. Its about making room for what we have to gain. Lent is about de-cluttering ourselves so we have room for Christ to dwell within us more deeply, more fully, more freely. Mortifications, sacrifices, they are supposed to be making room for Him. This isn't a loss. This is an immeasurable gain. "For my yoke is easy and my burden light." These words are ever true, even if they present a paradox. Have you ever felt this lightness? This easy yoke? Anyone even tacitly striving for holiness knows that following Our Lord is not easy. Yet, when He asks us to do the seemingly impossible and we Trust Him enough to follow, the resulting lightness of spirit, the interior joy that follows is without words. The absolute peace that dwells within - peace that cannot be shaken by external storms or events. It is not Christ who piles on the heavy burdens. We do that to ourselves when we do not make enough room for Christ to carry those burdens with us.
Imagine a long wooden beam across your shoulders. You are carrying it - heavy, weighed down. Next to you on either side are all the things you are attached to, all the things that clutter up your life: unhealthy relationships, mass media, love of money, greed, vanity, gossip, idleness, pride, laziness, a desire to have "things" you don't really need, compulsions, tendencies towards uncharitable words or thoughts...the list goes on. You're surrounded! Now, what if you were to start to remove some of these walking companions? What if you were to purge from your life unhealthy relationships? Vain attachments? Laziness? As these things begin to fall away from you, you suddenly have more room next to you. Who do you think steps in to help carry your load? The Master.
But you are still dragging along with you some of those clinging attachments, some of those disordered tendencies. Christ can only carry the edge of the beam and it still feels a bit heavy. What to do? Yes, detach yourself some more. The more you are able to detach yourself from the things of this world the more room you make for Christ to come in and take your burden, until you and He are so close that you can't even feel the weight of the beam anymore. The beam is still there, but you are no longer carrying the weight of it; because you have made room for The Master.
This is what Lent does for us. It is what seasons of pruning do for us. It is what we are called to over and over again. Living a life fixed on Heaven is living a life of perseverance. We must constantly allow ourselves to be worked on, to be pruned. Constantly checking those "walking companions" and making sure we make room for the Only Companion that matters.
I leave you with these musings on the eve of Shrove Tuesday as we all prepare for a season of expectant sacrifice. I pray that you will enter this Lent with the thought of what it is you are about to gain, and not what you are about lose.
And as an aside, thank you for reading. Writing helps me to make sense of things. It helps me to process and to articulate what my heart is trying to tell my head. It humbles me that others would want to read these bumbling attempts of mine to articulate the awesomeness of the love of our God and the privilege that it is to serve Him.
Peace!
