Weeds

I was out doing a little gardening this weekend which is a task I truly dread. I did not get my mother's green thumb and honestly would rather just have someone else do the work and reap the benefits of a beautiful garden. But since I need to live in reality (we won't be hiring a professional gardener anytime soon...), I was out trying to spruce things up a bit. Here is a pic of my little garden:

What you might not be able to tell (or perhaps you can if you've got a gardening eye) is that it is full of weeds...I mean just absolutely FULL. They have pretty much taken over my entire garden and here's the thing- as I tried to pull the weeds out, I could barely tell the difference between the flowers and the weeds because they have become so intertwined...it's like you can't see where one begins and the other ends.

So why am I even talking about all of this? Well as I was out working, the Lord gave me this sweet picture that this is exactly how I live my life. I try to make sure things stay nice and pretty on the outside (the flowers) but over time, sin starts to creep in my life (the weeds). It starts as just one sin here - one sin there... and that is exactly like my garden. I mean, I walk by my garden every day and see that one little weed and it doesn't seem overwhelming. I think, "I'll get to it later..." But eventually, my garden just like my life can get filled with weeds and it's hard to decipher between what is good and holy and what is sin. So where does that leave me?

My instinct when I started to weed my garden was honestly to just rip everything out and start fresh. New soil, new mulch, new flowers. And so often, I feel this way about myself..."Oh Lord, let me just wipe everything clean and start over!!" How thankful I am that I can do just that...by simply asking! And my prayer is that I can begin to get to a place where I catch myself early -- when the first "weed" appears and just nip it in the bud.

In the meantime, I will try to keep up with my garden too...you know, in all my free time :)

"A farmer planted seed...Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled among the weeds and nothing came of it. Some fell on good earth and came up with a flourish, producing a harvest exceeding his wildest dreams." Mark 4:3-8 (MSG)