Spring Cleaning

A friend of ours who is a farmer in the area has been busy this past week burning off old stuff in some of his fields. I am sure there is a more appropriate way to say that, but basically that is what he is doing. It seems that this will allow – and maybe even encourage -- new growth now that spring is here. We haven’t had the opportunity to discuss the pros and cons of this burning process, but we have made some observations as we drove by the action.

This isn’t something that can be taken lightly. It isn’t a task for someone who is not detail minded, or who has a hard time staying focused on the task till the job is done. There is a lot of preparation that goes into it. A burn permit must be obtained. One needs to enlist the help of a number of experienced and equipped friends. The wind has to be burning in the proper direction, and manner. The end goal is to burn a very specific area and not anything else and the fire – once lit – is not easily controlled if the preparations are not in order first. Of course one cannot control the wind either, so a lot of faith is put into the weather forecast and God!

As I said earlier, I haven’t had the opportunity to discuss the pros and cons of burning off old stuff in the fields as opposed to just letting the new grow through the old, but I can certainly see a great life application here for all of us today. Many times in our lives we make commitments to new life and growth, but we don’t deal with the old dead stuff. We hope and pray that the new life will grow up through the unproductive and even dead growth from the past. But like the seed that fell among the thorns in the parable of the sower that Jesus taught in Mathew 13, the new gets choked out by the old and we are pretty much back where we started from.

Obviously for those of us who have been created as new creations in Christ, He has forgiven and dealt with our old sin and life. But as the Apostle Paul himself laments in Romans 7, our spiritual journey is one of continual struggle between new and old. Thanks be to God, we can have the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord!

I hope you won’t consider me too much of a heretic or radical if I suggest that there are some spiritual lessons to be learned from the process that our farmer friend uses to burn off his fields. Getting rid of the old in our lives to make way for the new is a choice we have to make. We don’t do the work ourselves, but we do need to be prepared and attentive. We do need to make wise decisions when the time is right, we need to listen to the Holy Spirit and rely on the Lord for direction and guidance – and control -- of the process. Sometimes we need the help of experienced and well equipped friends who can assist us at the right place and time.

Jesus said: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.”

This is a great time of the year to be reminded of new life in Christ. Maybe it is also time for us to be reminded that there is some cleaning up needed – some burning of the old – to make way for future growth.  It would be in our best interest to let our Lord Jesus Christ “burn” any old stuff that might hinder the new life that comes from being connected to Him, so that we can in fact bear His fruit!