weeds

I have had the most lovely, home-body kind of weekend! I spent hours and hours puttering around outside, happily planting more flowers (is enough ever really enough?), and cleaning up the deck. I also decided that since my husband was away, I would serve him by doing a job he had been putting off.....ok, that's a nice way of saying I simply couldn't wait any longer for it it get done!

I decided to pull the weeds out of our back parking pad.

How bad can it be, right? I can safely say (and my poor back will agree) it was bad!

As I began tugging up the deep-rooted dandelions, at first it was almost fun. Yes, I do know that's weird, but there was such a feeling of accomplishment when I would twist the plant just so and know with all my heart that I had pulled up the entire root! As I slowly and methodically pulled weed after weed, I got to thinking - this is not nearly as satisfying as pulling the weeds (all 5 of them) out of my new window box. This job was tedious, literally painful (again, my back!) and not completely successful (so many weeds....).

In the parable of the weeds in Matthew 13, Jesus calls the weeds "the children of the evil one."

sin.

I started thinking about sin in my own life and how when I've caught it early, before I grew too attached to it (before the roots went down too deep) it was fairly easy to repent and release said sin.

I continued yanking (are these dandelions multiplying before my eyes??) and I thought about the times in my past when I've allowed a "pet" sin to grow and grow, thinking I could control it and it wasn't that big of a deal.....after all, God has alot more important things to worry about than my problem with ________......

After a particularly stubborn root knocked me off my feet (such a sight for the neighbours to behold!), I remembered the sorrow, pain, and discipline it took to clear that sin out of my life. It didn't happen over night, that is for certain!

O Lord, keep me from going there again. Help me to be honest with myself and honest with You, so I can keep short accounts of the ways I stray. Grant me Your grace to admit I can't live a moment without Your touch.

"Yet if you devote your heart to him and stretch out your hands to him, if you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then you will lift up your face without shame; you will stand firm and without fear. You will surely forget your trouble, recalling it only as waters gone by. Life will be brighter than noonday, and darkness will become like morning. You will be secure, because there is hope."

Job 11:13-18