Prune and Groom, that's what our Master does best.

Jacob 5

The longest chapter in the Book of Mormon.

A great one.

It was my night in charge of FHE (family home evening),

and I choose to dive into this chapter. I began with these verses. 

3For behold, thus saith the Lord, I will liken thee, O house of ^aIsrael, like unto a tame ^bolive tree, which a man took and nourished in his ^cvineyard; and it grew, and waxed old, and began to ^ddecay.

 4And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard went forth, and he saw that his olive tree began to decay; and he said: I will ^aprune it, and dig about it, and nourish it, that perhaps it may shoot forth young and tender branches, and it perish not.

 5And it came to pass that he ^apruned it, and digged about it, and nourished it according to his word.

This parable can be interpreted in a few ways.

First,

as the house of Isreal,

there are many great, righteous people,

and there also are many lost, unrighteous people.

Those unrighteous people will be cut off from the olive tree,

allowing stronger, younger branches to grow.

We must all be striving to live a righteous life,

worthy to grow on our Master's tree.

Second,

we individually are the olive tree.

We all have weaknesses and flaws,

we all have decaying branches and sins that hinder our growth.

Only through the Savior can we be pruned.

We must constantly turn to him for help, 

and through Him,

we will be nourished.

I think had a little demonstration.

I sat Curt down in a chair, 

in the middle of our bathroom,

got out the clippers and started to prune his hair.

It was time to cut away the overgrowth,

and let new baby hairs grow back.

Pruning,

especially for Curt,

is a constant necessity.

But all in all,

our Savior is the ultimate groomer.

It is Him who shapes us into what and who we are.

Through his words,

we will be nourished and will bring forth ripe fruit.