weeds

A weed is but an unloved flower?  Really?

In my gardener's mind, weeds are sin, growing at exponential rates, emboldened by our environment to proliferate and destroy good fruit.  So that'd be like saying, "A sin is but an unloved quality attribute."  I don't think so.

I planted vegetables from seeds, this year, and watched them sprout and grow.  I would water them regularly and check on them often.  They were doing great.  Then I was gone from my garden for a couple weeks and I returned to find the garden overrun with weeds, making my seedlings practically invisible.  I started working on the garden, over the next couple of weeks, whenever I had time and it wasn't raining.  But the weeds continued to grow at insane rates before I could address them.  

Yesterday I finally finished clearing out the plots with my carrots and beets and pickling cucumbers.  But by that time, the weeds were enormous!  Some were 15 inches tall and completely overshadowing all my plants.  My beet tops are about 8 inches tall so they're not seedlings anymore, but they were still completely hidden from sight.  I'm glad to say that my garden finally looks like a garden again (at least for now.)

As I was working at these weeds, hour after hour, I kept thinking to myself, These weeds are sin.  I hate them.  Because just like the sin in our lives, if we neglect to bring them to God, the sin will literally overrun the good fruit that God is growing in our lives.  In other words, it is possible for a "heart garden" to contain God's good fruit as well as sin.  And others can enjoy the blessings of our fruit, too, even if the weeds are bigger than the fruit.  But the fruit won't grow to full capacity and some of it may never grow at all, unless the weeds are removed.

But here's the problem, once the weeds are as big as mine were, trying to remove them is actually stressful on the good fruit.  As I pulled out weeds that were growing right next to my beet root, the soil around the plant would loosen and my beet plant would kind of wilt over.  I thought, Oh no!  I've ruined my plants because I tried to remove the sin-weeds too late.  But unwilling to give up on my plants, I kind of replanted them by tucking them back into the soil and readjusting their positions.  At the end of the day, all the leaves were just laying there, exhausted from the stress they sustained.  I added lots of water and hoped for the best.  By the next day, they were strong and the leaves were extended toward the heavens as if in praise to God for their clear patch of ground that now facilitated their desire to reach towards the sun.

So I was reassured that it's not impossible to target the sin in our lives after it's overgrown, but it will take some extra effort, for sure.  And that's all good and well and we already know that.  But what struck me the most was how much faster and successfully the weeds would grow.  I do not believe weeds are unloved flowers.  There has got to be some biological structure of a weed that is different from a plant because of its proliferation rate and ability to grow regardless of the environment.  During my break from gardening, yesterday, my friend and I were talking about these weeds and how, like sin, they overrun the good fruit.  She said, "It's because everything in the environment encourages their growth because this is a sinful world."  And that's the truth, isn't it?  Weeds will naturally grow. Sin will naturally take root because this is the world in which we live.

When God cursed the earth and told Adam and Eve that it would be through toil that they would produce food, I believe He was trying to remind them of the nature of sin.  He wasn't trying to punish them and make them suffer.  He doesn't want us to suffer.  He just wants us to remember.  He wants us not to neglect the tending of our hearts.  He wants to make sure that we see, firsthand, how destructive sin can be if it is allowed to run free.

The seeds of sin are already in the soil.  They are standard-issue in these gardens of ours.  We can invite Jesus to pick them out whenever they grow but they'll just come back, from the neighboring gardens, from the seeds the birds drop, and so on.  Our only safeguard is to invite Him to tend it on a regular basis.  And when we do?  Wow!  The fruit that is produced is fantastic!  A garden plot near mine is entirely weed free and their beets are the size of small apples, whereas mine are the size of radish wannabes.  I have hope, though, for a full harvest of beets, now that they can see the sun.

All I really want to say is:  Please don't neglect the tending of your heart because everything in this world encourages the growth of sin.  Sin is not just an unloved flower.  Don't ever believe that kind of nonsense.  It is the kind of thing that chokes out the fruit that God is growing.  Invite the Master Gardener into your garden every day so that it can be a place of rest and enjoyment.

In the Garden has always been one of my favorite hymns.  I love the idea of my garden being the place where God and I meet and walk together (while the dew is still on the roses).  That image is so peaceful and inviting.  The Gardener tends our gardens and then it becomes the perfect place to spend time with Him, away from the harsh environment of the world.  It can be our little piece of Heaven, where we can commune with God and enjoy His presence.  I want that.  I want to get to the place where He isn't constantly working on the weeds, but where I can take the time to enjoy His glory.