Weeds

      With spring finally here to stay, I have begun the seasonal battle common to anyone with a yard to maintain -- the battle against The Weeds. Seemingly genetically engineered by some mad scientist, these foul virus-like creatures have an amazing ability to take over a lawn in next to no time at all. Left unchecked, they manage to find their way into every corner of your yard, propagating through some mysterious mechanism that transports them from one end of your yard to the other in a matter of days. One weed becomes two, and two becomes four, and four becomes a patch, and soon they are sprouting spores and seeds and pollen and who know what other insidious means of infection, catching the wind to inflict themselves on your neighbors as well.

      Weeds come in all shapes and sizes. Some are big, obvious plants with spiky leaves and no socially redeeming value whatsoever. Some like to be more subtle, camouflaging themselves with pretty buds and flowers, or soft rounded leaves like the more desirable garden plants. And yet, they all have one thing in common...they choke out the good plants. Weeds are greedy and voracious, shouldering their way into areas of your lawn where they are not wanted. They rob other plants of light, stealing important water and nutrients from the soil.

      Some spread outward like vines, intertwining themselves around the stalks of healthy plants in their assault. Often these tentacles choke the life out of the good plants, squeezing tighter and tighter until the other plant can resist no longer, and dies. The Weeds continue their inexorable march onward, setting down little roots every few inches to secure their hold, until they have slithered their way into every area of your garden, yard, or flower bed. Other weeds spread underground through roots that move unseen beneath the surface, popping up suddenly in unexpected places. In both cases, the longer they are left un-dealt with, the farther they will spread, and the firmer their hold will become. Still other weeds spread by spores. Their pretty-looking flowers turn into seed pods, which suddenly burst open, sending a hundred little future weeds flying on the wind to land somewhere far from the source, spreading like wildfire across wide distances.

      The best approach to dealing with weeds is to get after them early, and often. A pair of stout work gloves and spade are required equipment. Some of the smaller weeds seem to pop right out without a problem, root and all, never to bother you again. Yet others seem to have nine lives, and no matter how often you pull them, they keep coming back. The problem with these stubborn weeds is that the roots are deep, and if you don't get the root, there will still be something lurking there underneath the ground, waiting to grow back into a full blown weed again.

      Sin in our life is a lot like weeds in our garden. Sin has a nasty way of taking over our life if we don't deal with it. Left unchecked, it can spread from one area of our life to another, and then to another, until we feel like our whole life is slowly being choked out by the controlling tentacles of sin that run throughout. If we are to keep our lives like our gardens -- lush, fruitful and growing -- then we need to give them both a lot of dedicated hard work. When we DO finally start to deal with the sin in different areas of our life, we find that -- like weeds -- some are easier to "pull" than others. Some smaller sins are yanked out pretty easily, roots and all, never to bother us again. And then there are those deeply rooted sins, sins that have been neglected for a long time, left to spread deep underground. As hard as we pull, and as deep as we dig, even though we seem to pull out most of it, often there is still a root that remains, ready to sprout up again later. Try as we may, it seems like there are always a few "weeds" that we can never fully get rid of, no matter how hard we try. These are the sins that spread, often unseen, into other areas of our life. For some it might be a harbored bitterness, or anger, or some resentment that isn't dealt with, left to fester and grow in their heart. This resentment about one issue or relationship begins to spread to other areas, or relationships, until our entire life seems controlled by its oily tentacles. Our frustration with our spouse erupts in a confrontation with a coworker. A dissatisfaction with our boss or work environment manifests itself in harsh words to our kids, or our closest friends. We try to smooth things over on the surface, and say our apologies, but since the root of bitterness is still there, it is only a matter of time before this "weed" is seen again.

      For some, the hardest weeds to eradicate deal with their thought life. The lure of Internet pornography or provocative magazines and videos begins to take control. No matter how hard you try, it seems that you can never quite seem to rid yourself of these persistent evils. This "weed", like so many others, can spread to other areas of your life as well. Your work may suffer because of extended romps across the Internet, your relationships at home suffer because your mind, and passions, are busy elsewhere. You begin to close off other areas of your life to make room for this one, all-consuming passion. Time and again you repent, and swear never again. But each time you only get the "top", and the "root" remains, buried deep, looking for another chance to break through.

      Even gossip and slander can be sinful weeds in the garden of your life. These are the seed pods that masquerade as pretty flowers. Under the guise of "just wanting to share a burden", or "sharing a prayer request", or expressing a "sympathy" for a situation someone is in, in reality we are giving ourselves permission to sow doubt and dissension in someone else's garden. We share secrets given in confidence, we suggest intent or negligence where there was none. Our words become vines, winding their way into another heart. They may appear "pretty" on the surface, but underneath they hide an ugly secret. The pod bursts open, and our "well-intentioned" words spread to others, sowing the seeds of sin in their heart through our hurtful, betraying words, tempting them to continue the verbal chain; and so the "spores" spread like wildfire.

      Sin is the weed that chokes out the life within us, robbing us of joy, and light, and growth. It fills the areas of our life that should be reserved for the Holy Spirit. There is only one sure way to kill a weed, and that is to get to the root. The Bible says that, "The words of a talebearer [are] as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly."(Prov. 18:8) Sin runs deeps, and harsh words and dark thoughts can implant themselves deep in our heart. And yet, God's Word also tells us, "Shall not God search this out? For he knoweth the secrets of the heart."(Psa 44:21) As deep as our sin may go, it is never out of view of God, for he knows our innermost being, our deepest wells of hidden guilt and private sin. We can hide nothing from Him, even as we may try to hide it from ourselves, and others.

      God is our Master Gardener. He is Lord of our hearts, and our lives. He is the "groundskeeper" of our heart and spirit. In John 15:1-4, Jesus gives us this assurance:

"I am the True Vine and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me."

      God's word tells us that "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."(1John 1:9). The cure for those weeds, those sins in our heart, is confession before the Lord. Expose the roots to the light, and let the Master Gardener prune them away for you. Anything that is unfruitful, that is choking out the life in you, must be given over to the care of the Gardener. If we do this, if we acknowledge these weeds before Him, He is faithful and just to "prune" them, to remove them from our life. But as anyone with a garden knows, if you want to continue to receive fruit from that which you have planted, you must be ever vigilant for weeds. It is a never-ending process. So also is our vigilance against sin in our life. Whenever we find something in our heart that is not of God, that which is undesirable, we must bring it before our Groundskeeper so that He might lift it from us. Any weed we ignore, or hold back, will be left to spread, often undoing the careful work the Gardener has already begun in us.

      The very first garden in the Bible was pure, without weeds, without sin or corruption; a place called Eden. But through man's pride, and disobedience, the garden was corrupted, weeds flourished, and death became a reality. Jesus Christ took on a thorny bramble as a crown of honor; in one act taking the worst of our weeds to the Cross with Him. Through His sacrifice, Jesus gave us hope for Eden once again, and made it possible for the weeds to be removed, once and for all, from our lives.

      Is it time for a little "spring cleaning" in your life?

Copyright © 1999, 2000 by Divinspiration^®