By Michael L. Alumbaugh © 2024
“If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned” ~ John 15:6
Ah, yes, the smell of wood burning and the comfort of a couple holding hands while snuggling up by a cozy crackling log fire to warm their home and their heart. There’s nothing better than that on a cold winter’s night. . . . But that’s not the way it was.
Instead, I’d had to fell a 30 foot white pine that we’d planted over 20 years ago next to our home. It was dying. The needles were constantly collecting in the rain gutters and burying the newly planted lawn. The lawn died as well and had to be replanted, so the tree had to go.
I didn’t have a chainsaw. I only had a couple 30” hand bow tree saws, an axe and a hand tree pole saw to bring it down and chop it up. Even with my Bride tugging on a rope tied to various branches during the process, I still managed to drop limbs over the fence into our neighbor’s yard. I’d damaged a couple boards in his privacy fence in the process, but he was kind. We got the limbs removed from his yard and the fence repaired without cost.
Now, all was left was eliminating the dead wood from my yard. As before, on two other pine trees in the same area that had died, I pulled out my two patio burners and began chopping the branches into smaller lengths to burn.
I gathered the various dried sticks, pine needles and smaller limbs until I had a good armload. Then, I carried them to the burners and began tossing them into the fire. After an hour or so, I noticed the pile growing smaller and the ashes getting deeper. With each load I felt a greater sense of relief that the thing plaguing our lounge area would soon be gone and forgotten.
It was then that the Lord Jesus opened my spiritual eyes. As I tossed another stick into the flames, the fire roared, consuming the dead branch, turning it to ash, or “Dust. “ He asked me, “Have you been fruitful for me in your past or will it all be turned to ash and dust?” I paused, reflecting on my life. “Was there anything I’d valued and invested in, or struggled with secretly, that was dead and gone or was it still alive and well?”
With each toss of dead debris, another thought occurred; that stick in my hand was my past struggle with setting my eyes/mind on things I shouldn’t. I tossed it into the fire. It was dead. Now it’s burned! The next stick was my struggle with acceptance. It was dead and I committed it to the fire. And the next was regarding my providing for my family and future, and so on and so forth, stick after stick. The list seemed endless.
All those were chains of my past, the ones Satan has so easily ensnared me in; I’d been destroying their hold on me, with the Lords help. Here they were, burning up in front of me. I committed them to the Lord one stick at a time, one toss at a time. I was being transformed over time to be the man Christ wanted me to be. Those old chains that haunted me were now being broken. I was free. That’s true freedom!
But the question still lingers; what tree am I, or will be, known by? What fruit have I produced? (John 15:5-6) What will I be confronted with when I stand before Christ? Are my new branches producing fruits of righteousness or are they more dead works? Will I be snatched from a wasted life burned to ash or will I hear “Well done good and faithful servant. Enter my rest?”
How about you? Are there things in your life needing to be eliminated, put to death, pruned and burned? With all diligence, get rid of them while you still have breath. “. . . throw off every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares you, and run with endurance the race that is set before you . . .” Hebrews 12:1
Dig a Little Deeper: Psalm 119:11, 32, 140; Proverbs 29:1; Luke 24:5a-6a; John 15:1-11; Acts 17:30-31; Romans 6:22, 13:14; Galatians 6:7-8; Colossians 2:6-7, 3:1-17; 1 John 3:9-10
Published in the January 2024 issue of Black River Times
