Living with Weeds

It was a year ago when we planted grass seed over our newly dug garden area to create a dream lawn; suitable for play and pleasure. With diligent care we nurtured the grass, feeding it, watering it, cutting it and removing the weeds that grew alongside the tender grass shoots. This year we are reaping the rewards of the effort taken and we are fulfilling our dreams of a place for us to enjoy.

However, there is a problem – weeds! Having felt as though our efforts of last year should have been enough to handle such things, we were naturally disappointed to find them multiplying. My initial reaction was to dismiss them with the thought, “Well, they don’t look that bad.” I had failed to realise that the real issue was not about looking good. This was about the weeds stealing space, food and water from the grass.

This is how it is for us in our Christian walk. We often start off with an amazing amount of effort being poured into our journey with God. We open ourselves up and start to dig out the weeds of our lives. But as life moves on we often feel that we have “done all that” and we just want to move into our calling and destiny under God. Yet the reality is that the cares and concerns of the world and the desires of our carnal nature continue to create such “weeds” in our lives, even as we walk along our Christian journey.

It may seem as though you never reach the end of the weeds, which is just how I feel when I look at my lawn. Maybe there is some truth in that. None of us are perfect and none of us have dealt with all that has passed that encroaches into our daily lives with God. The truth is the weeds in our lives are robbing us of a deeper relationship with God, where we receive His love, care and provision.

Being of a stronger constitution than grass, the weeds would eventually overtake the grass and my lawn would not be the place of play and pleasure we intended it to be. In our lives, if we disregard the weeds as “non-obtrusive” or “not that bad”, they will eventually grow into a more dominant force in our lives and we will fail to enter the fullness of the life, destiny and calling God has for each one of us.

Let us all today ask God to show us the weeds of our lives so that we can live in the fullness of all that He has for each one of us. Let us do this, not for our own ends but to enable us to fulfil our ultimate destiny – to be a pleasure to our Holy God.

Prayer: Lord, I know that there are weeds in my life. Help me to see what they are and to deal with them accordingly. Lord, I ask this so that I can grow deeper into You and to give You more pleasure as I love and serve You. Amen.