I weeded today, all by myself. The girls are at a friend’s house for a playdate and the weather is nice. And the weeds prolific. So I spontaneously started pulling them and couldn’t stop. I made great progress until I got to the little ones.
I was very tempted just to leave them. Because they are annoying and time consuming. You have to pull each little clover with two fingers instead of wrapping your hand around an entire clump of weed. While I was busy pulling out those little suckers, it struck me how sin in our lives is like weeds in a garden. How sin grows in the recesses of our hearts when God prefers to grow flowers. How He reaches down and plucks weeds from our hearts one-by-one.
And for us, perhaps allowing the weeding process is easier on our big sins. And by big I mean the public and juicy ones like lying, stealing and cheating (on a test, on your taxes or on your spouse).
And those small private ones – those are the ones we want to hold on to because they are the hardest to work on, and perhaps the hardest ones to identify and purge. Sins like self-absorption, materialism (a.k.a. idolatry), and gossip.
Then I got to the vines. And I thought about how when we don’t address our sins – big and small – they take a foothold in our lives and wind themselves into so many areas it down right hurts to pull them out. And perhaps that vine includes other people who we really hate to see go, but need to be purged out of our lives as well. Or at least given a good talkin’ to.
Which led me to the curse. You know, Eve was deceived and Adam was not. He could have refused that fruit. Bu he didn’t. And that brings me back to weeds. You know what God said to Adam when he was handing out consequences for those bites? “Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you shall eat of the plants of the field.” (Genesis 3:17: 17b-18)
Poor Adam. Romans 5 explains we all sin because Adam did and in Genesis we are told he’s responsible for the weeds too.
And it made me wonder: What weeds am I holding on to? Which ones do I leave alone because they are hard, annoying, or humbling to deal with? And it gave me resolve to allow God to weed my garden.
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Comments (6)
Very good, very true. We also have a tendancy to want to judge others for their “big” weeds in pride because we know they can’t see our “little” weeds.
How did Ryan do on his test the other day for the feeding tube?
Very good reflection Leighann…Thanks for sharing it with us. I am sure we can all benefit from this.
How are you enjoying your new house? Did you move very far away?
Love ya,
Linda @ Truthful Tidbits
Awesome post I almost didn’t read it because I’m not a gardner or greenthumb but as I read it so glad I did. Wonderful way to use that metaphore small vs. big weeds and smallvs big sins. thank you so much for sharing, great insight!
Sarah:)
Certainly glad that our God is patient enough to find the good amongst the weeds
Wow you are a deep thinker..even when pulling weeds. Thank you for the post….it got me thinking too 🙂
Sometimes you find things, just when you need them. Thanks.