How Does Your Garden Grow?
I fancy myself a gardener. In reality, I’m the type of “gardener” who is really enthusiastic about buying a lot of showy, colorful flowers in May. When the bloom season really starts to ramp up, the world outside looks green and bright, the birds are chirping, and the sun actually feels warm on my skin for the first time in months. Fast forward to the end of June or the beginning of July – when the humidity and heat threaten to completely undo me, and the bees are buzzing around my face – and I turn into an unapologetic quitter. I look at some of my plantings from the safety of my air-conditioned home and whisper, “Peace out, little plants,” as I try to remember if I bought the drought-tolerant varieties. By August, when it’s still suffocatingly hot outside, my beds are overrun with thorny weeds and crabgrass that’s thick like shag carpet. Gardening is no longer fun at that point. It feels like an exercise in futility.
We’ll have one rogue cool day in August when I decide to “tend” my gardens by violently ripping out the weeds that I’ve let grow with abandon and neglect. I’m irritated, mostly at myself, for letting things get out of hand like that. I crouch down on my kneeling pad, muttering unkind words under my breath, and I yank those weeds by the throat.
Some of the weeds come up easily, their pale roots sliding out of the parched dirt with little effort. But others, well, they need some forcible prying. And if you pull too hard too quickly, you’ll leave half the root system in the soil, opportunistically ready to grow again. I have to use a little fork-like weeding tool to make sure I grab the whole root system. Sometimes it feels like a real surgical procedure.
And isn’t this just like our own sin nature? Some sins are easier to “weed out” than others. Some loosen quickly, and we can turn away from them with relative ease. But others are more deeply rooted, more stubborn, and seem to grip our souls more tightly with every tug. Those sins are the ones that have a little fight in them. They go down swinging and do not give up easily.
Mark 9:43 uses some rather dramatic language to get our attention on this matter. Jesus tells his disciples that it would be better to cut off your own hand, or foot, or gouge out your own eye if it’s causing you to sin. This hyperbolic talk isn’t meant to be literal, but instead, it points us to the simple reality that if we’ve got a sin problem, it’s better to ruthlessly cut it out than to keep it around. This kind of soul gardening is sometimes painful, but the long-term benefits outweigh the short-term discomfort. When eternity is at stake, we do not have the luxury of letting those sinful weeds hang around in our gardens.
LIFE-GIVING ENCOURAGEMENT
What’s growing in the garden of your heart these days? Take stock of what’s proliferating and then use the appropriate weed-killing measures to eradicate the weeds of sin. Listen to the wisdom in Mark 9 - don’t mess around. Weeds that go unchecked will surely choke out all the beautiful blooms that have been painstakingly planted.
PRAYER
Father, teach us how to be good gardeners of our souls. Show us the areas that need to be ruthlessly weeded or pruned so that the good stuff can grow.
Christa has been married to Greg for 25 years, and they have one son, Palmer, who is a junior in college. She loves women’s ministry, teaching art to homeschooled children, and whipping up fantastic recipes in her kitchen. If she could pack up her church family and move to coastal South Carolina… she’d do it in a heartbeat.
Are there other women in your life who could benefit from a daily dose of encouragement? Forward this email so they can click on this link to Subscribe to Daily Treasure to be better equipped to walk by faith on the pathway God has marked out for them.
Sharon W. Betters is a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, pastor’s wife, and cofounder of MARKINC Ministries, where she is the Director of Resource Development. Sharon is the author of several books, including Treasures of Encouragement, Treasures in Darkness, and co-author with Susan Hunt of Aging with Grace. She is the co-host of the Help & Hope podcast and writes Daily Treasure, an online devotional.
Contact Sharon with comments or questions at dailytreasure@markinc.org.
