Prayer

   

Prayer means pruning.  "Every branch that does not bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful" (John 15:2)  The gardener cleans off sucker branches that sap the life of the branch.  These branches are not bad; they simply take life that should go into definite fruit-bearing.  Many of our lives are overgrown with the unimportant.  We are busy with the nothings.  Prayer brings the important to the center of consciousness and pushes the unimportant to the edges.

     An artist at work kept beside him a collection of precious stones of many colors.  When asked why, he replied, "I have to wash out my eyes constantly in the colors of nature."  These colors clarified his colors.  When I look at Jesus, a sense of the worthwhile comes upon me.  I wash out my eyes in His colors.  I look into the face of Jesus, and when I do, I know I must wash my own face, my heart, my life.  
Taken from E. Stanley Jones daily devotion