Pulling Weeds

Pulling weeds has always been one of my favorite tasks. I have a real sense of accomplishment when I am through, because there is a huge difference in the appearance of the flower bed when I finish. Two weeks ago, I spent a Saturday morning and a Sunday afternoon weeding our front flower bed. When we moved in, Justin and our friend Adam worked extremely hard getting that flower bed looking so nice! Justin planted several Indian hawthorns, and he totally changed the look of the bed. Since then though, an over abundance of weeds has crept in, and before we knew it, the weeds were strangling the Indian hawthorns.

Lessons Learned Pulling Weeds
For these lessons we are going to associate weeds with sin.

Take up your cross daily…
As I was pulling the weeds, some weeds came up easily, while others were much more difficult. Some I was able to get the root but some were just too deep. Needless to say, this week I have been back in the flower bed pulling more weeds! Frustrated by my inability to just wipe them all out, I began to think. This frustration is similar to how I feel about sin. Most often, when I recognize an area of my life that is out of step with Jesus, I deal with it, and then I move on, usually forgetting about it, only to wake up a few weeks later staring it in the face. Christ calls us to daily take up our cross to follow Him. This includes daily looking at our life, recognizing even the smallest sprout of sin and removing it. This is impossible if I am not walking in step with the Holy Spirit.

What is the root?
My inability to get the root of many weeds is the primary reason they reemerged so quickly. This is the same with sin. For example, let’s pick the sin of jealousy. I notice that I am jealous of someone else’s vehicle with a third row seat and so much more space, and I simply say, “Angela, you should not be jealous of their car.” I move on and the next week, I am jealous of someone else’s backyard with tons of space and really great patio furniture. Clearly there is a deeper issue. When I evaluate things, I recognize that I am not trusting God as my provider and believing that He has given me far more that I could ever need. I am going to throw a little Beth Moore at ya, because most often my sin falls into one of five categories she worded well in her Bible study, Believing God. Most often my sin is a result of not believing … God is who He says He is. God can do what He says He can do. I am who God says I am. I can do all things through Christ. God’s word is alive and active in me. In the case of my jealousy, I am not believing that God says He is my Provider.

Dealing with sin can be painful…
As I pulled the weeds, I was nearly through when I felt a painful stinging on my wrist. I never saw what it was, but the result was a strange looking whelp and an arm that tingled from my fingers to my shoulder and began to ache. I did come inside after that sting and take care of my injury, but as tempted as I was to leave the weed pulling to my hubby, I returned the next day to face the weeds once again. As we dig in and seek to deal with sin, there is almost always pain involved. If Satan had it his way, the first twinge of pain would send us running. However, as followers of Christ our desire to look more like Jesus has to outweigh our desire for comfort. There will be pain, sometimes even scars, but our God desires our sanctification and will walk with us through the process.

Sin can appear “pretty”…
I did enlist the help of Elizabeth for a little bit of my weed pulling. (Which by the way could be another lesson learned. Help from the Body is a good thing!) Some of our weeds had pretty little white flowers on them. Elizabeth continuously referred to them as flowers rather than weeds. Unfortunately, we do this a lot with sin. Let’s go back to my jealousy example. I easily explain away this sin, saying, “If we had a bigger yard, we could have more people over more often and be better at hospitality.” That’s righteous, right? NO! God has given us this home and expects us to use it well. It is very easy to explain away our sin, but sin is still sin- let’s call it what it really is!

The list could go on and on, but I will not bore you with my sin issues. I do pray however that you would take a look at the weeds in your own life and seek God’s leading in dealing with them.