Basil Plants and the Process of Pruning

Last year, I was given several packets of seeds.  Through the process of elimination (meaning I need to work on having a green thumb), only one of the seeds survived to be called a “plant”.  Thus began the life of my basil plant.  Over the months I’ve kept it in the sunlight and gave it water.  As a reward, it has grown up tall and strong and I’ve even used a couple of the basil leaves to flavor my cooking. 

A few months ago, I looked at my cute little basil plant and noticed something: it was growing flowers!  :D  How cute!  I didn’t know that basil plants did that!  They were cute little white flowers.  I was very pleased with my plant.  As time continued to progress, however, I noticed that it was no longer producing basil leaves.  The flowers quickly died, leaving little green bushes that smelt funny.  Not a very helpful thing to do.

As I looked at my basil plant, I wondered what to do.  It was growing, and that was good, but it was no longer producing the leaves that I wanted.  It wasn’t fulfilling its purpose.  I didn’t want to simply throw it out – not after the effort I had put into it – but what could be done?  An idea came to my mind that I needed to trim it down.  Like rose bushes need to be pruned to produce more roses, maybe my little basil plant needed a little snip to produce the basil leaves.

Out came the scissors. 

I hoped that the plant wouldn’t die from the abuse.

It no longer had flowers; it just looked like a stick in a pot of dirt.  But I continued to leave it in the sunlight and give it water with the hopes that something good would come from it.  A few days passed and I looked at my plant again.  To my joy, I saw that it was producing little green leaves.  Basil leaves!  It worked!  The pruning had helped the plant to grow leaves instead of flowers!  Success!

As I thought about this experience, I remembered the story about “The Currant Bush” by Elder Hugh B. Brown.  In it he talks about the same thing, about cutting down a currant bush so then it would produce berries again.  He then talks about when he was denied a higher position in the military and how he was glad that he was cut down to size.

Our lives are like these stories.  We may have an idea of where we want to go and what we want to do that might not be the best use of our time and energy.  The basil plant produced cute flowers, to be sure, but it wasn’t growing what it was intended to grow.  You don’t grow a basil plant for pretty flowers, you grow it to use the leaves as herbs.

God knows perfectly our talents and abilities and he knows what we need to do to have the most success in our lives.  When we start going off in the wrong direction, he will send us into a situation that might “prune” us.  He does this because he knows our needs better than we do.  We need to trust that he sees things more clearly than we do.

Now, it hurts.  I’m sure my little basil plant didn’t like looking like just a stick in some dirt.  It hurts when people don’t recognize your value or you are denied an opportunity that you want so desperately.  It’s hard to be cut down – especially when you’re sure you’re in the right.  So what do you do when you come across that kind of a situation in your life? 

 

While there are many reactions you could (and most people do) have such as anger, frustration, depression, sorrow, and a desire to give up on everything, what is the right reaction that will bring the most happiness and progression into our lives?  In answering this question, we can look at the greatest example of being cut down in the entire universe: Jesus Christ.

 

Never before or since has there been someone so great and so powerful as our Lord and Savior, and never before has someone gone through so much pain suffering and ridicule as he.  What did he do in the midst of all of this hardship?  He humbly and meekly suffered through it.  He didn't turn away from his course, he accepted all that he was called to bear.  So too must we do. 

 

It does hurt, and it is hard, but more importantly it is worth it to stick it out.  We will grow from the experience and we will fulfill our potential as the Lord sees fit.