Today I'm pruning my rose bushes, cutting out the dead branches.They have not done very well this summer, with few roses blooming. In previous years the bushes were covered with beautiful red blooms. Perhaps they have not done well because I failed to prune them last fall. Pruning in the fall is supposed to result in new growth in the spring. I have to be careful and avoid being stuck by the bushes' sharp thorns.
This reminded me of the times I've heard about 'pruning' in the Bible. It seems that 'pruning,' if it is cutting out the 'dead wood,' or bad habits of our lives, is very good for us. We won't have to turn our brains inside out to discover what are our destructive habits, either self-destructive or harmful to others.
Probably at the top of every list of bad habits of Americans is watching internet pornography. This can not be mentioned too many times! It is destroying families! In pre-internet times, stores were encouraged to not stock magazines that featured attractive young women scantily clad. In some stores, they had to be covered with a brown paper 'wrapper.' At least back then (in the 70's or 80's?) this was considered 'trashy' and 'downgrading' to women.
Now worse filthy images can be easily brought into our homes or brought up on I-phones at any time. For a few years, questionable websites would come to my junkmail. I deleted them because the very topics offended me. I wondered why I was selected. Probably everyone, at one time or another, is bothered by this. Then all of a sudden I noticed they were no longer coming to junkmail. I imagine that if you never respond, eventually the messages will stop.
Some think that this is a 'victimless crime.' I couldn't disagree more! With personal knowledge of several families in which this problem has resulted in one spouse spending so many hours by himself to the neglect of his family, I know the very marriage is threatened at this time. This is not victimless!
There are plenty of other personal bad habits we could identify and try to uproot. Take laziness, for example. Or take its opposite, workaholicism. Either way, we could be focusing more on ourselves than on those who are important to us.
We could be indulging in so many of our favorite foods that we have a weight problem. That, indeed, seems to be a problem for many of us! What to do . . . ? We might try substituting a GOOD HABIT for that nagging problem that won't go away by itself.
Years ago I had a friend who really was addicted to eating grapes! She was terribly overweight and just couldn't get enough grapes! She moved out-of-town so I never knew what happened, if she kept this up for years and years. Seems like it should be easy to limit oneself to fewer of a good thing, or to cut it out entirely for a time.
If we can conquer at least some of our bad habits, we have power!! - the power to do good!
Lord, You and I both know what I have to do. Please give me the strength to persist!
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