Did I mention I’ve been growing a garden...? (sarcasm)
With the sun over the past few weeks, the plants have been springing up, but so too unfortunately have the weeds, so this evening it was game on for Tom vs. Nature.
While I was weeding, I was thinking about life, and God was revealing a few things to me as I worked about the nature of sin in my life and in the world. Here’s a few things I was thinking about.
- The reason I only got around to it today was because I didn’t think the problem was as bad as it was. From afar it just looked like there was a few little green shoots popping up every here and there, but when I actually started pulling them out, it took a long time, and by the end I had a massive pile of weeds. It’s the same in our lives, we might look at ourselves and think, “Well, I’m not THAT bad off, there’s just a few things here and there that could be better” but when we get down to actually dealing with them, we realise that a little bit here and there spread across a life can actually make a pretty big pile. We realise too late sometimes that the energy and potential that we have is dissipating, not into growing the good things, but sheltering and tending the things that we would rather weren’t even there in the first place.
- Some of the weeds that looked the smallest and the most defenceless had the deepest roots, and pulling out the top part doesn’t fix anything. We need to deal with the root issues of the sin in our lives, deal with the reasons behind why we do the things we do, and don’t do the things we know we should, otherwise, we’re just pulling off leaves hoping that the tree will eventually fall down.
- Dealing with weeds isn’t a once-a-season job, it’s something that needs to be constantly done. Seeds of weeds (*fun to say*) are constantly landing and taking root in the garden, so weeding is a job that needs to be done again and again. Dealing with our sin isn’t a once-in-a-lifetime thing either. Unfortunately, on this side of eternity, we are broken, and we’re staying broken...thankfully, in Him we have the opportunity to be getting better and better day by day, but sin can still take root within us, starting from the tiniest seed, it can grow so quickly. We need to be a people who are living lives examining ourselves, being willing to do the hard work of weeding out the things that are not of God within us.
So there’s my tuppence worth of thoughts on sin for the evening. I learn about God through action and doing things...and lots of what I’m doing in gardening these days, hence all the analogies.
I’m really thankful for outside space to get my hands dirty and to grow things. It really is incredible, I’d encourage you to give it a go. If a novice like me can do it, anyone can.
