Pruning season: a necessity.

Pruning:
Verb
trim (a tree, shrub, or bush) by cutting away dead or overgrown branches or stems, especially to increase fruitfulness and growth.

Benefits:
* for growth
* for protection
* for encouragement
* for balance
* for more light to be let in,
* for direction
* shaping
* improving or sustaining health
* to increase yield

- Pruning must be done in the right season.

Tool: pruning Shears : a sharp metal garden tool made for cutting


Things pruned from a tree and why ( just to name a few):

Water spouts - they zap nutrients and energy

Crossing branches - Friction that opens a wound for possible decay and disease

Hanging branches - the trees own self survival strategy caused growth in the wrong direction

Sucker growth - A trees response to stress or injury that slows overall growth of tree


- A properly pruned tree will not have compromising branch structures and improper weight distribution that could lead to disaster later on in the tree's life.

John 15:2-6
Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.

Isaiah 51:3
3 The LORD will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing.


SELAH!

* what other verses does this make you think of?