Pruning

I like Steam Engines. I mean, I'm not one of these wierd guys whose life solely consists of such things - I'm not a steam train nerd. Honestly. It's years since I went train spotting. I've had ministry and everything.

Anyway, I like Steam Engines. So when we were having our holiday with Catherine and her kids up in Carlisle a couple of weeks ago, I thought the children would love to have a ride on a train pulled by a steam engine.

They were very enthusiastic. Well, one of us was anyway. And it was so close, would have been a shame not to have done it. A two hour drive with a two and four year old is nothing. You can see from the photo's how much they enjoyed themselves.

So, took lots of photo's 'cos it was such a nice day. I like photography (see what a well rounded, outgoing person I am?) when we got back I then spent hours editing them which was when I had my moment of revelation. (No, it wasn't "David you really need to get a life"). It was to do with cropping, or if you want the Biblical equivalent, pruning.

Here's another photo. It's of a steam engine. Knew you'd like it. I admit I spent a while adjusting lighting and contrast, balancing the colour. But I really thought the effort was worthwhile.


Nice picture. Posted to Facebook.

Came back to it a while later and with the benefit of distance, realised that I could improve it a lot. Not by adding new tricks, not by enlarging it, not by air-brushing bits. But by getting rid of clutter. By pruning. By focusing on what was really important and cropping the rest, no matter how interesting. Here's the result.

Now, if you look a the original, you will realise that you could crop it so you had a human interest photo - no steam engine, just people. In fact, as I went back through the photo's I realised that often where I had one really nice photograph, by careful cropping I could have two or three stunning scenes.

So, making the obvious point, there are lots of good things in my life. Areas of ministry, gifts, abilities, experience. The problem is not that there isn't good stuff - it makes an attractive picture! The question is my willingness to allow someone with a better eye, a bigger perspective to crop the photo. What bits, however nice in their own right, no matter how good or useful to others, are actually distracting from the picture God wants to focus on? Time and again as I looked at the photographs I struggled to crop. I found it hard to cut out parts that were of themselves attractive. But as I took the courage, I realised that the 'harsher' I was in the cropping, the better the result.

Jesus said 'I am the true vine, my Father is the gardener, he prunes the vine so that it can produce more fruit'

If I'm going to be as effective as I want to be, as fruitful as God longs for me to be, as impacting as my friends need me to be, I'm going to have to learn to trust God's eye and give Him permission to crop out the clutter.