From The Pastor’s Pen – By Brian Horrobin
A few years back my two sons announced to me that they wanted to plant a garden.
We made arrangements to obtain one of the community garden plots that was situated on the property of our church.
I was okay with that until it dawned on me that I would be tending the garden with them.
Our first day on the job was to tackle thistles and quack grass.
I couldn’t believe how many there were and how arduous the task was to get them all pulled out.
I felt pretty good, though, after we had finished because now the weeding was done.
Then they came back!
Like teenagers to an all-you-can-eat buffet, the weeds just kept coming back.
It was a never-ending job to keep pulling them up and care for the tender tomato plants and other garden vegetables my boys had planted.
Why is it that the things you want to grow struggle to make it while the weeds seem to need no encouragement to flourish and spread?
Aren’t our lives a bit like that?
The areas of our lives that hold value also cost us in terms of time and energy.
Meanwhile, the weeds, the sins that we want to avoid keep cropping up, threatening to choke out the fruit of good character.
Every gardener knows that regular weeding is paramount to maintaining a good, healthy garden.
Let’s take some sound advice from King Solomon in Proverbs 24:30-34: “I went past the field of the sluggard, past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgement; thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins. I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw: a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest – and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.”
Take some time this week to evaluate the state of your life and see what things need to be weeded out.
Nobody’s going to do it for you!
