pruning and the art of loving correction
when God prunes us, he has to cut us. but he'll need a pair of shears.
let’s be honest here, we all know that we have character traits that are not so great. shortcomings like always being late for something, procrastination, humble bragging, or being too prideful.
those “qualities” started out as something good but overtime they have developed into bad traits. humble bragging for example, there’s nothing bad about being proud of something. you can be proud of something big you’ve accomplished like having good enough grades to be accepted into prestigious universities or working on an important project. or maybe you have a friend/sibling/relative who has accomplished something great. there’s nothing wrong about not being proud about that.
however, you don’t necessarily have to share that with everyone to show them how special you are. you already are special those accomplishments don’t make you any more special. you don’t have to prove anything to the world. it’s God you want to impress.
anyway, God can see your flaws and he sees how they might hurt you in the long term, so to prevent that he’ll take those traits away from you. but He can’t just snap His fingers and poof they’re gone... or maybe He could but He doesn’t work this way. because He loves us so much he won’t take anything away from us we don’t want to lose. even if it could potentially hurt us. so we have to let trust Him and let Him cut us. but even once we’ve agreed to it, he won’t just snip away. sometimes he does but that’s a different story, one I have yet to learn to understand... because it hurts. So He surrounds us with people who love us. people who want us to grow as a person, who only want the best for us. like our parents, our siblings, our friends.
if you truly love someone you would let God hurt them so they can grow, but you’ll walk with them so they wouldn’t have to bare the pain all by themselves. Also wouldn’t you want to be the person God uses as his pair of shears? because then you can let God work through you and correct that person, but you can also make sure they know that they are being loved.
so don't be afraid to be His pair of shears. it takes a lot of love and courage to be that shear for your friends.
