Sinful Weeds

With all the rain that we’ve had this summer, I haven’t had many chances to go outside and work in my flower beds to get the weed population under control. There was a brief break in the clouds a few days ago, and I took that opportunity to take back over my flower beds from the grip of all the evil weeds.

I’m reminded each time that I tend my “garden” that there are so many similarities with my spiritual life. As I struggle to pull out a weed whose roots have grown deep into the rock-hard Texas clay, I recognize that this is akin to what happens when I fail to identify a sin in its early stage and uproot it; it takes a firm grip and is harder to get rid of it. Instead of a quick pull, I have to work really hard and exert a lot of effort, possibly even get out some tools, in order to extricate it. It’s kind of a painful, and often dirty, process that usually takes a while.

And one reason for that might be that I’m not tending the garden or my spiritual life as often as I should. If I spent more time in God‘s Word, maybe I’d recognize the sin more quickly; just like if I spent more time in the garden, maybe I’d recognize the weeds more quickly before they could sink their roots down deep. Maybe I’d even take some preventive steps to thwart the sinful weeds from growing in the first place, like praying for God to protect me from going down paths that lead to sin.

“Lord, I pray that you would help me tend my spiritual garden often, that you would keep me on the alert for the sinful weeds that I’m prone to, and that you would help me to keep the soil in my spiritual garden open to growing beautiful flowers instead of sinful weeds.”