Pulling Up Weeds

 My initial intent when creating this blog was to write informative posts about flowers, gardens and trails that I have discovered. But recently I have learned that my Garden Discoveries have not been just about the actual gardens I see but the discoveries that I learned about myself while experiencing God's creation.  This is another post along those lines about what God taught me during the simple act of weeding.

Saturday was another weekend workday at Garfield Community Farms, and it was amazing how many volunteers showed up from different churches and organizations to help. While part of the group went to work on a house renovation project, the rest of us stayed to work in the gardens. The theme of the day? Weeding!! Now normally weeding is not my favorite part of gardening because you have to be careful not to pull up any plants that are suppose to be there. But today the wildflower section I was working in was almost all weeds so it wasn't too hard; if it didn't have a flower on it pull it out.

The section I was working in

All the tall grasses had to go!

While I was working on pulling the weeds out of the ground, I was thinking about the weeds each of us have; the unhealthy habits, thoughts, relationships and other sins that have taken root in our lives. When they are small and just beginning to sprout they look non-threatening. You think that it is okay to leave the small weeds in the ground because the tall beautiful flowers will cover them up and no one will notice if you leave one or two weeds behind. But soon the small weeds will overtake the garden of your heart, and like the tall grasses above, will choke out any beautiful flowers that try to grow.

So what is the best way to get rid of weeds? Just like in gardening you need to pull the weeds out at the root. If you just snap off the weed at the stalk it may look like the weed is gone but it will just grow back. In our lives this means we need to not only confess our sins but actively change how we live; turn our backs on the old ways and start living for Christ in every area of our lives. When I would come across a particularly large and difficult weed I would have to ask for help from one of the other volunteers to help me dig it out. In the same way we can't be afraid to ask for help from our friends, family and spiritual leaders to help us with the deep rooted weeds in our lives.

Now will this mean that weeds will never grow again? Of course not. Weeds are a natural part of every garden and in everyone's life. We just need to continually work on pulling out our weeds so that they won't completely take over and hide all the flowers.

Almost all cleared!

Now there is more room to plant beautiful flowers!!

I hope this will be an encouragement for you to look at what areas of your life need to be weeded. It takes hard work and can be difficult to get started, but once you pull out some weeds you will be amazed by what beautiful flowers the LORD will place in you life now that there is room for them to grow.