Weeding The Flower Beds

By Pat

A few weeks ago, I decided to give my flower beds a much needed and long overdue weeding. I dread it. I hate it. But... I have to do it, so after much procrastinating, I began the task.

As I began working, I said a prayer, and asked the Lord to just let me feel His presence, hear a word from Him. I didn't ask for anything in particular, but just to have a sense of the Holy Spirit as I worked in the flower bed.

The first thing I started with are the weeds I hate the most. I have no idea what kind they are, though I'm sure they have a name, but if you're a gardener you'll know what I mean... they are prickly and they get very big and will, in fact, take over the flower bed if they're not kept up with. You can't pull them out. They have to be dug, for the stickers on the leaves hurt like the dickens.

What a pain they are! So I got my shovel and started tackling the demon weeds. As I worked, however, I began to view these weeds not as weeds in a flower bed, but as sins in my life; undesirable qualities that if not weeded regularly, will take over the good in me and grow and fester, making it impossible for me to have the relationship with the Lord that I want to have, strive to have.

Just like those awful weeds, my sins cannot be simply pulled out. The roots are too deep, and the leaves are too prickly. My sins have to be removed by the root. Dug out, worked with, pulled and finally removed thoroughly, in order to effectively and completely be gone. I equate these weeds with the qualities in me which are most undesirable; un-forgiveness, harboring grudges that I don't even realize I have, self-doubt, disobedience to the Lord. These are things that can truly hinder me in my spiritual walk, and in order to live more completely to the Lord, they must be removed from me. And not just with a quick pull either, but with hard work, diligence, prayer and determination.

Sometimes I pull those weeds thinking I have gotten it all out, only to realize that there is still a tiny little bit of the root that didn't come out. I didn't work at it quite hard enough. How like those sins of mine are those weeds! I can tell myself I have conquered the demons, but if I do not get the entire root, it'll come back. Make no mistake about it, you better didg deeply and thoroughly, or I guarantee, you have not completely removed that quality you are trying to remove. Be prepared to work and struggle with it.

But when you do get that entire weed, when you have really worked and struggled and dug down deep into yourself, and prayed for God to help you get down to the root of the problem, the root of whatever is causing you to be less than what your God wants of you, what a blessing! It's gone, truly gone, never to return unless you become slack and lazy and forget to check your inner flower bed to see if all is still clear. So put on those gardening gloves and grab that shovel, and keep that flower bed looking good!

But guess what... as I worked and sweated that day, and dug out one prickly, long-rooted weed after another, I noticed something else... there were OTHER kinds of weeds in there! Similar, less noticeable and much more easily removed, but hey - a weed is a weed, right? Once again, I compared them to me, full of little things that needed to be kept in check daily... these are the things more easily remedied, more noticeable, more easily removed, but no less troublesome.

These are the weeds in me that are my sharp tongue and my ugly ability to let the most ridiculous little things annoy me, making me not always the most peasant person to be around. I hate those things in me! I detest those pesky and unattractive little weeds. So I try to remember each day to yank those weeds and keep the flower bed of my heart clear. I ask God to place an angel at the door of my lips to keep the ugliness from affecting those around me, and I pray that I will feel at peace in my heart and become more tolerant and less apt to become irritated by irrelevant, silly little things that are meaningless. I have to admit (grudgingly, of course!) that sometimes it doesn't matter how many angels are posted on mouth patrol. I still hear myself snapping, so I try harder, pray more, and believe that we serve a God who knows our hearts and loves us even when we're ugly, and honors the fact that we strive to be more like Him, and forgives us when we fail and gives us the will to continue trying each day to eliminate the weeds from our hearts.

It amused me to observe that so many of the weeds in my flower beds were hard to see; hidden from view. They were so small, and so over-crowded by the tall, colorful and beautiful flowers, that it would be very easy to pass them by and not really even notice them, but they are there just the same. A passer-by would never notice them at all. They would just see a flower bed overflowing with beauty, lush and alive with color.

But I, as the gardener, can move the flowers aside and find every weed in that bed, no matter how hidden and over-shadowed they are by the flowers, just as our Gardener cannot be fooled.

He sees our weeds, no matter how we try to hide them. And we might succeed at preventing the world from seeing the, but God knows they are there, and He also knows that just as weeds are detrimental to a flower bed, so are the inner weeds that make us what we are. The world might see the lovely flowers, but God sees EVERYTHING. Let Him weed your inner flower bed! He knows exactly what needs to come out, and the best way in which to remove it!

Pat is a good friend who is passionate about her faith and her family. She works from home supporting a family business, and loves to read, write and garden when she can, and spends every spare moment with her grandkids.

Comments

[Sarah Salter]

This was awesome! A GREAT analogy and VERY true! Thank you for sharing this! :)