Uncovering What Matters: God’s Pruning in Our Lives

Have you ever felt like you're going through the motions in your spiritual life? Like you know Jesus is there, but you just can't seem to find Him beneath all the chaos? 

This week, I share a deeply personal story about a hidden house that taught me a profound spiritual lesson. For years, I drove past a spot where I knew a charming house with beautiful azaleas once stood, though it had become completely hidden by overgrowth. When development in our area finally cleared away the vegetation, revealing the house exactly where I remembered, God used this everyday moment to speak directly to my heart.

The house represents our spiritual foundation - Jesus remains exactly where He's always been in our lives, even when we can't see Him clearly through life's distractions and demands. Drawing from the parable of the sower, I explore how the worries of life, wealth, and desires for other things can choke our spiritual fruitfulness. Sometimes we need radical pruning to cut back the excess and rediscover what truly matters.

My recent journey through a chaotic season - with my husband's career transition, children growing up, new work responsibilities, and ministry development - left me feeling disconnected from my spiritual center. Yet beneath it all, I knew by faith that Jesus remained my foundation. This episode is an invitation to examine what might be obscuring your view of God and consider what needs pruning in your spiritual life.

Whether you're thriving in your faith or feeling lost in the undergrowth, this message will encourage you to return to the simplicity of knowing whose you are. Subscribe to the podcast and join my email community for weekly encouragement as we journey together toward what truly matters.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome Back and Book Announcement
• 4:28 How God Speaks to Us
• 7:38 The House Hidden in the Woods
• 12:22 Finding Jesus Beneath Life's Chaos
• 17:19 Pruning for Better Growth
• 23:05 Prayer and Book Signing Reminder

Transcript

Audrey: 1:13

Hello and welcome back to Grace From my Home. I'm Audrey McCracken and I'm so delighted to be back with you again this week. I hope that you're doing well and that you're in the middle of a great week. We are doing well here in the McCracken home. My children are back in school and my husband is back in work, and I'm trying to to get some kind of a routine going on. I'm working at the coffee bar that I run for my church and trying to put together some new resources for you guys.

Audrey: 1:48

As you probably know if you follow the show, I just released my second book. It's called Seek First 31 Quiet Moments with Jesus and I'm super excited about it. I'm going to have a book signing on Saturday, april 6th at Awaken Coffee Bar in Mullins, south Carolina. That's going to be from 9 to 1030. So if you live in or around the Mullins area, anywhere close, I would so love to have you. I'd love to meet you and talk with you and sign your book. I would so love to meet you and talk with you and sign your book. I would so love to see you. So, if you can make that, that's going to be next Saturday, saturday September 6th, from 9 to 1030 am at Awaken Coffee Bar in Mullen, south Carolina.

Audrey: 2:30

If you have not signed up for my email list, I encourage you to do that. I send out weekly emails. I send things to encourage you through the week. I send links to the podcasts and blogs that I do, but I also try to share other things that are on my heart that week scriptures, things that are going on here in our home and I'm trying to be more consistent and beef that up a little bit, because I see that as an opportunity to share with you in a different way. So if you are interested, if you'd like to hear from me every week, please go to the show notes and sign up for my weekly email, and I would be so glad. Today I want to share something with you that has been floating around in my head and I was praying about what to share with you guys this week. And this is what I landed on.

Audrey: 3:21

And you know God speaks to us different ways and you know we're all different and he created us that way and he knows who we are and he knows how to talk to us. Now I've run into people over the years who have told me that God does not speak, that he spoke. He spoke in his word and that's it. You know, jesus said my sheep hear my voice. And it says also that the Holy Spirit leads us and guides us into all truth.

Audrey: 3:50

Whenever you have a relationship with someone, communication is very vital, very important to keep that relationship alive and strong and healthy. And I truly, with all my heart, believe that that also is true for our relationship with Jesus, that in order for us to have a real, alive, healthy relationship with Jesus, that there needs to be communication, and that includes us praying to him and us listening for his answer, for his response to our prayers. Now, sometimes that answer may be no. We may ask for things and the answer may be no or not now, but that's an answer. And I have to believe that if I need something or if I'm struggling with something and I take it to the Lord in prayer, that he will answer my prayer. And so when I talk about God speaking to me, that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about him leading me in such a way that I recognize that he is speaking, that this is his will or this is what he is saying to me at this moment. Sometimes it's when I'm reading the Bible and words jump off the page. Have you ever had that happen, Like I'll be reading the Bible and then a passage that I've read many, many times before, it's like a light shines on it and it's like the Lord saying pay attention, this is important and that's how God speaks to us. But he speaks to us all different, in different ways, because I think he makes us different and you know he's a God of wondrous variety and you know Jesus used a lot of analogies in his teaching.

Audrey: 5:30

He uses he's. He used a lot of parables and in those parables he drew a lot of analogies. And that's often how I feel like God communicates with me. You know, I'll be driving down the road and see something and I'll be like, oh, there's a truth in that. See, jesus took everyday common things. A lot of times he relied on things like sowing and reaping because that was very relevant to the people he was speaking to. He lived in an agricultural society and so he spoke a lot on sowing and reaping and the people got it. So he would take these truths and he would wrap them up in an analogy that the people understood, and then they got it in an analogy that the people understood and then they got it.

Audrey: 6:19

And so this week I was riding down the road and I want to share with you something that I feel like the Lord used to speak to me. I have lived in the same place my entire life. I live about not even a quarter mile from my mom, and that's the house that I grew up in, and we built a house, my husband and I. We built a house not long after we got married, right down the road from my mom and my dad at that time. He's since passed away, but I know these roads, I know this area like the back of my hand, and there are roads that I have gone down thousands upon thousands of times.

Audrey: 7:00

And the other week I was going to pick up my son from school and something caught my eye. Years ago there was a little house on the road to the school where my children go to school, and that house, it was a cute little house. It was an older house, but I remembered it because it had huge azaleas in the front yard. And for you who don't know, azalea is a southern plant. I know there's a lot of them in the south. They're huge, they grow really big and in the spring when they bloom they're beautiful. And they bloom in white and purple and pink and they're just beautiful flowers. They don't have much of a smell but they can get really big if you don't take care of them and trim them back. And my grandmother had them. My mom has them in her yard. But I remember this little house because the azaleas in their yard was huge and they'd gotten so big that it almost taken over the house, the front of the house, because they were almost as tall as the front porch. But I always remember thinking those are the most beautiful azaleas I've ever seen.

Audrey: 8:06

Well, over the years somebody must have moved out the house. I don't know who lived there, but the house started falling apart. You could say People weren't cutting the grass and after a while they weren't doing anything to it. And I remember, you know, over time and like I said, I've been living in the same area for now 52 years this year that house was completely covered with vines and trees in the yard and overgrowth. But every spring I could see just a glimpse of those beautiful azaleas and they would spring up, you know, and I would see those azaleas through all of the weeds and the undergrowth. So I knew that it was still there.

Audrey: 8:52

You know, well, over the last I guess, five, six years, I couldn't see the azaleas. And the truth is, if anybody came by that road, they wouldn't even know there was a house there because it just looked like woods. And I knew that there was a house there because I remember those azaleas. But my children had no idea there was a house there because they'd never seen it. And truly, you know, if you drive past that area you didn't see anything. It just looked like woods and it seemed like those woods had been there forever.

Audrey: 9:24

Well, the other day, when I was going to pick up my son from school, I noticed they had been doing some work and they had completely uncovered the house. See, we live in an area that's growing really fast. A lot of developments are coming in, people are moving, spreading out from Myrtle Beach, people are coming down from the north, moving here, and so a lot of farmland, a lot of old wood, a lot of woodland is being renovated, woods are being cut down, farmland's being turned into developments. Well, this little house, I guess, is in the middle of a big track and they had cut back everything and there was that little house and it was like aha, I knew it was there. Well, you know, my son was coming back with me and I said let me show you this little house. So I was bringing him back from school and I said you see that house, I remember that house growing up. They had the big, prettiest, most pretty azaleas in the yard and it was right there in the woods. And his only comment was mama, you're really old, you remember what's in the woods? And I said well, it really wasn't that long ago, honey. I guess for you it was a lifetime, but for me it wasn't. And I just, I don't know, there was some kind of a validation that there stood the house that I knew was there all along. And you know, the azaleas were cut down, but the house was there. And I don't know, guys, it was like when I got home I couldn't get that house off my mind and it was like the Lord was stirring something in me, like something about the house, and I said, lord, what is this? What are you saying about that house? And it was like and I don't know how to explain this, but I'm going to try and if you get it, then praise the Lord.

Audrey: 11:17

But I've been through a season where things have just felt chaotic. I feel like I've just been holding on by the seat of my pants, you know we have. Everything has just felt topsy-turvy. My husband resigned from his position at the church. He's working on his PhD. My kids are all grown up now. I don't homeschool anybody and I miss that season of my life. I loved it. I've got a kid in college and I've got two in high school and one of them is trying to play football at the college level and he's gotten some offers. And then I'm working at this coffee shop and I'm trying to grow my podcast and I'm trying to grow my online ministry and I'm writing books and these are all good things.

Audrey: 12:07

But it has just felt like I have lost my center things. But it has just felt like I have lost my center and I pray and I've gone to the Lord in prayer but I feel often like I'm doing it out of duty. I know I need to, I know I have to, I know he is there, but it's like I hadn't been able to really see Him. But I know he's there and it was like that's what that house feels like. I've been going by faith that I know you's there and it was like that's what that house feels like. I've been going by faith that I know you're there, lord, I know you're there.

Audrey: 12:36

You know we experience things in our life that people can't take away. You know, sometimes you can convince people by arguing your point. Sometimes you know, if you're a good debater and you've got some strong points, you know you can talk to people and maybe even convince them. If you're a good debater and you've got some strong points, you can talk to people and maybe even convince them that you're right. But there are some things that we know so deep inside of us that, no matter what words people use or how they come at us, they're not going to change our minds.

Audrey: 13:06

Because we know what we know and that's how my relationship with Jesus has been. I know what I know. I was a sinner. He found me, he rescued me. I know how I was before. I know how he changed my heart and I know that the love of God changed me completely.

Audrey: 13:28

But for a while for a longer than I want to admit I feel like I've just been going through the motions. I know this is true. I know this is. I know he loves me, I know that he called me, I know that everything in my life is a blessing, but I can't find him. It's like he's out there somewhere and when I went by the house the other day, it was like the Lord saying I'm still here. You may not see me, you may not even see the azaleas blooming anymore, but you know that I'm real and that I'm here and I'm at the core of it all. And there was a comfort in that. I was like, yes, lord, I know it, I may not, can see you right now, but I have lived long enough that, even though the undergrowth is huge and it feels like it is all consuming and it's hidden, everything important I know what is under all of that stuff and at the core is Jesus. And, guys, that is the. That's what faith is.

Audrey: 14:42

Uh, I believe, even though I don't see, I know from the experience that God has allowed in my life, from the things he's done in my life, I know that he is for me. I know that he wants me to get it. He wants me to be successful in my relationship with Him, even though I may not see the things the way I want to see them right now. By faith, I believe that he is on my side. And when I say he's on my side, what I mean is that he wants me to be successful in my walk with him. He does not want to condemn me, he does not want to have to correct me, he wants me to get it. And he feels the same for you. You know, sometimes people it's like they call you to the Lord, they tell you you need Jesus, but it's almost like they beat Jesus down your throat and they want you to feel really bad about it. You know, but Jesus is calling and drawing us. He is saying I am so real and I have so many good things for your life. Come and taste and see that I'm good.

Audrey: 15:55

And this week it reminded me of that scripture, and it's in three of the Gospels, but I'll just read one to you this week. And you probably know the parable of the sower, where the sower went out and he sowed seed and that seed fell in many different places, different kinds of soil. One fell on the rocks, one fell in the stony ground and one fell among the thorns. And it says in Mark, chapter 4, starting in verse 18, talking about the seed that fell. It says Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word, but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires of other things come in and choke the word, the word, making it unfruitful. Pruning makes things grow better and pruning hurts. But there comes times in our life where we need a good pruning. We need God to come in and do something radical.

Audrey: 17:06

There are seasons in our life when we have to get back to the basics. You know, we have to cut back all the excess and all the chaos around us and we've got to get back to what we know is true. And sometimes we have to be kind of radical about it. You know that's my personality. You know I'll say well, I'll work on that later. No, I have to do it now because I know me and I'll keep on going and I'll keep surviving instead of thriving. And I'm in a season where I feel like the Lord is saying cut back all the excess, cut back till you see me again. I liken it to going back to kindergarten. Sometimes we get so full of knowledge and understanding and we're so proud of ourselves and all this that we've acquired and we've obtained, but God wants to bring us back to kindergarten. He wants to bring us back to what really matters.

Audrey: 18:01

We have to get back to the truth. What is the truth? What is the cold hard truth? What is the cold hard truth? What is true? Because there's so many things vying for our attention and for our allegiance and we have to know what is true. Well, jesus said I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. We have to get back to Jesus to find out what is really true and if we allow him, he will help us to cut back those things and the things that choke out the life.

Audrey: 18:38

I want to breathe again, I want to believe again, I want to walk in that simplicity of faith where I know I belong to Him and I know that I'm doing what he asked me to do. And when it's all said and done, that's all that matters. You know there is a humility in that that you know anything I do here on earth, it's all going to burn, it's all going to be washed away. Only thing that's going to remain is what I did for the kingdom, and one day I have to lay my crown down at his feet and everything I've done will be at his feet and the only thing that's going to matter is what I did for him, what I did for eternity, and I want to come back to that place and, by the grace of the Lord, want to come back to that place, and, by the grace of the Lord, I'm coming back to that place. Let's go back. Let's go back to that place, let's come back to his heart, where that's the most important thing. It's really the only thing that matters is Lord, what do you want me to do? What have you called me to do? Is Lord, what do you want me to do, lord? What have you called me to do? He wants to bring us back to our true state. Who is he really? Who am I really? I belong to him and that is my identity. That's who I am and that's the most important title is that I am a child of God, that I belong to Him and everything else needs to circle around that.

Audrey: 20:10

There's a saying that I love and it's been on my heart lately, and it goes right back to this analogy. It says some things break your heart, but they fix your vision. Has your heart been broken lately? Mine has. I've been disappointed by people. People I thought I understood people, I thought I knew, and you know what. I've probably disappointed people too, because sometimes we get so caught up with each other and the things going on in this world that we stop fixing our vision on Jesus.

Audrey: 20:54

And God is in a season right now in my life of cutting things back so that I can return to what I know is true, what I haven't really seen in a long time. But I know he's real, I know he's good, I know he has good plans, but I'm just too busy with my own plans and that's exciting. I miss the excitement of loving Jesus and not knowing what lies ahead, but knowing that it's going to be good because that's where he is and that's where he's taken me and, even through the hard times that I haven't expected in that it's going to be good, even if I have to go through the hard times to get there, that the ultimate end is good because that's where he is. And I just invite you to come with me. You know, let's let him cut some things away, because if he's cutting them away, they weren't necessary. You know, when you prune something it hurts and there may be a season without fruit because you've been pruned, but when the fruit comes back, it's sweeter comes back, it's sweeter.

Audrey: 22:13

We have here, right across the road from my home, is a vine, is a grapevine Actually, it's a muscadine vine that my dad planted many, many years ago and it's huge, but after my dad passed away, nobody kept it like he did, and so, though it's huge, it's not producing that much, and my mom, she hasn't been able to maintain it like he did, so she, this season, is going to find someone to cut that vine back, and so we'll probably have a season where we don't have grapes and that's sad because I love those grapes and we may have a season where we don't have grapes and that's sad because I love those grapes and we may have a season without them and that's Not good. But we know that they're going to come back bigger and better and more fruitful, and that's what God wants to do with us. Sometimes he cuts things away and it hurts and we don't like it and we miss those things and we love those things, but it's because he's got something better in mind and when we can get our eyes off those things and those people and we can put our eyes on Jesus and trust that. I may not like this, but I know you've got something good in mind. I know your heart is to love me and to bless me and not to hurt me, but you will allow me to go through painful things in order to get to the things you have prepared for me. Now. Jesus had to go through the cross in order to redeem us. There were things that Jesus had to suffer, but there was a reward in the end. It says he despised those things, he despised the cross, and there are things in our life that we perhaps despise and hate and would like to turn around and walk the other way and not face those things. But our life, the real life, the life that is in Christ Jesus, is on the other side of those things. We just have to stay the course, we have to press through them and it's going to be worth it, amen.

Audrey: 24:13

Now, I hope my little story encouraged you this week, I hope it gave you something to think about and I hope it spoke to you.

Audrey: 24:31

Like I said before, if you are in or around the Mullins area on September 6th, we would love to have you at Awaken Coffee Bar from 9 to 1030.

Audrey: 24:39

And go and join my email list so you can keep up with current events and things that are going on, with Grace For my Home, and I love you and I pray that you have a great week and let's pray before we go.

Audrey: 24:47

Father, I thank you for these precious ones who are listening today. I thank you that you have a good plan and, lord, you see things from such a high viewpoint, lord and Lord, you see things from such a high viewpoint, lord, you see all things, lord, nothing is confusing to you, lord, god, you don't forget anything and I pray, lord, that you would help us to see through your eyes. I ask you to speak to us in ways that we can understand and I ask you, lord, god, to teach us how to walk with you in faith and Lord, show us, lord, what needs to go, cut it back for us and, lord, let us see once again, lord, the riches that are in Christ Jesus and the reason that we loved you to start with, the reason we came to you to begin with. God, renew in us, lord, god, a steadfast spirit. Lord, in Jesus' name, we pray, amen. God bless, bye-bye.