Let Him Lead

Patricia was relaxing on the couch the other night, one of the kittens curled into the crook of her arm like he'd been poured there. I came in from the yard and just stood in the doorway for a second taking it all in. Her. Him. The window behind me full of everything we've spent years tending. None of it holding itself up. All of it, every piece, depending on hands that weren't its own.

That's really what this whole series has been circling. Something, or someone, has to lead. The only question we absolutely must be asking is who.

There's a queen palm in our backyard named Coco (you can read about her here). A few years ago she was struggling badly, her fronds dull and sparse, barely growing at all. We eventually found out why: her own old growth, the outer bark and older fronds, had gotten so thick it was actually restricting her, choking off the new growth trying to come up underneath. So we cut it away. All of it. It looked brutal while we were doing it. It looked like we were undoing her rather than helping her. But new fronds came in afterward greener and stronger than anything she'd grown before.

Jesus doesn't dress up that same process to make it more comfortable than it was for Coco: "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." (John 15:1–2) Notice it isn't only the dead branches that get cut. The fruitful ones get cut too! Pruning was never a punishment for the parts of you that failed. It's what a good gardener does to the parts of you that are already growing, so they'll grow more.

I don't think I've ever fully made peace with that. I strongly want to believe that once something in me is bearing fruit, it's finished; that's it, it's safe, it gets to just keep doing what it's doing. But that's not what the true Gardener does. He keeps cutting, keeps shaping, keeps taking away things I'd have sworn I still needed.

Pruning is only half the picture though, and I think it's the half we're more willing to accept, because at least it sounds like discipline, like something a strong person can grit their teeth through. The harder half to admit to is a Hong Kong orchid tree named Claire (you can read all about Claire here).

When we transplanted Claire into a new spot in the yard, she wasn't established yet. Her roots hadn't gone deep enough to hold her against a real Tampa Bay storm, and the first big wind that came through nearly took her sideways. So we tied her down, running cords from her trunk to anchors buried in the ground, holding her upright while something invisible and wonderful happened underneath the soil. It looked like restraint. It was actually the only thing keeping her standing.

That's surrender too, and it's the part I resist more than the pruning. Pruning at least is a thing that happens to you. Cords require you to admit, out loud, that you cannot hold yourself upright on your own. It requires us to be proactive rather than reactive. Paul knew that admission better than almost anyone in Scripture. He begged God three times to remove his own thorn, and the answer he got wasn't strength to finally stand on his own. It was this: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9) God didn't untie the cords. He became them.

So here's what I think surrender actually is, once you get past the idea of it and into the daily practice of it. It's letting things be cut away that you thought you needed. And it's letting yourself be held up by something outside yourself, instead of insisting you can stand on your own roots before they're ready. Subtraction and addition, both at once, both uncomfortable, both love.

And it's not a once-and-done thing! That's maybe the part I underestimated most, back when I still thought of faith as a decision you make one time and then simply carry in yourself. "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23) Daily. Not the day you first believed. Every day since. Paul says it even more starkly than that: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." (Galatians 2:20) Not "I found a better version of myself." Not "I finally got my act together." But rather, simply said while incredibly profound: "I no longer live." Something had to die so something truer could stand in its place.

I think about Patricia at peace on the couch, that kitten breathing against her arm, and the yard outside doing what none of it could do without us, and it doesn't feel like a small thing anymore. It feels like the whole picture. None of us out here in this world, plant or cat or person, were ever meant to lead ourselves. We were meant to be tended. Pruned when we need it. Held up by cords when we can't yet stand. Following, daily, a Gardener who was never trying to diminish us. Only ever trying to help us finally bear the fruit we were made for.

Let him lead. Not once. Daily. That's the whole of it.