More on weeds...

I mowed the lawn today.... and I have more to say about weeds.... I know... I know!  I talk a lot about weeds.  Kinda seems like all I do is garden, but with 1.89 acres to care for, weeds figure into the equation quite a bit.

Our lawn is actually a quite frightful sight right now. I keep praying that God will water it for us because moving a sprinkler around a 2 acre lot is not only wasteful it just might give a passing environmentalist a heart attack! Our lawn is more brown than green right now, and the patch on top of the septic hill is COMPLETE hay. We just haven't gotten much rain lately and things have gone a little dormant. The lawn really actually didn't need to be mowed except for the WEEDS!  DARN WEEDS!

Out in the country we have these noxious things. They start out looking like a pricker plant, but in the BLINK OF AN EYE this stick grows up from the center of the pricker plant shooting up to about 2 feet tall in no time at all. So while our grass is brown and nearly dormant barely in need of mowing, the weeds scattered ALL over our lawn needed to be mowed and were nearly as high as the riding lawn mower. So I put the mowing deck on the second highest setting and set out to mow my weeds.

As I mowed I marveled at how what I want to grow (my grass) is dormant and near death and what I want to  go away (the weeds) is thriving and vibrant. I also marveled at how as I ran over them, many of the weeds resisted the mowing blade having found solace under the tire of the mower until after the blade passed. I mowed the WHOLE lawn yet still there are a good 30 of those plants, mocking me with their 18" height.

How like life huh? What we want to grow (faith, hope, love, patience, kindness) has to be coddled and watered and fed and babied just to show the TINIEST shade of growth.  And what we want to slay (greed, selfishness, pride, anger, lewdness) fights our every attempt to annihilate it. On a daily basis we have to cultivate what we WANT in our lives: pure speech, peace, trust and at the same time we have to fight the urge to cuss, fret, vent, and SCREAM!  Left to itself, the lawn of our hearts would be just like my lawn... dormant, dead, brown grass with knee-high weeds thriving across it.

There is no easy way out of this dilemma. Only hard, back breaking work will bring about that which is good in our souls. Only daily Bible reading, continual prayer, and CONSTANT choices to REJOICE in our trials will give us a heart as pure as gold. Only minute-by-minute slaying our selves, laying down our wills, and FIGHTING Satan tooth & nail will get rid of the dross that floats on the top of our hearts.

My lawn problem isn't solved. I should probably get a TON of weed killer and go on an all out WAR against those evil little things.... But my war against the problem with my heart has new wind beneath its sail. Fighting those weeds encouraged me to fight my sins, to fight against the devil, and to rail against my own selfish desires.

Hope you enjoyed this little bit of John-Deere inspiration.  Now go fight some weeds!

Weeds....

I have become such a John Deere girl! (Okay my riding lawn mower is a Yard King or something like that, but you get my drift right?) See it's become my job to mow the mammoth of a yard we now have. John works so much. Every night (except Monday) he arrives home between 8 and 9. Saturdays he works a full eight hour day. His only real day off is Sunday, and that is church day and a well-deserved Sabbath too. So it has become the Momma's job to mow the 1.89 acre lawn, and guess what? I actually LOVE it! Idk why... I think cuz it's mindless and no one can interrupt me, and because the lawn stays neatly mowed just a little bit longer than the kitchen floor stays spotless after a mopping.

Anywhoo... I was mowing on Tuesday, and I came up over a hill in the backyard and caught sight of a beautiful patch of overgrown grass polka-dotted with bright yellow dandelions. At first the beauty of the sight took my breath away, but very shortly thereafter, God hit me with a POW! of a lesson. Even as my eyes took in the beauty of the green with splashes of yellow and my heart swelled at the appreciation of the beauty of God's creation, my brain started to kick in and say, "Ummm Jami... Those are weeds." I thought about how just a few weeks ago there wasn't a dandelion in sight. Then one day, Elijah brought me a fistful of "flowers." I thought, "Hmmm dandelion time." Before I knew it... there were patches everywhere. Dandelions were covering my lawn.

God got me thinking about sin. One minute everything is hunky dory. Then sin pokes its head up and if you don't do something about it, before you know it, your whole "lawn" is covered with dandelions.

I've had several applications of this thought called to mind the past few days, but here is the one that is screaming out the most and hitting me HARD in the heart. It has to do with relationships.

I am very good at filtering the thoughts that occur in my mind before they reach my lips; however, because of this I tend to keep my mouth shut a little too much. I let little irritations with people fester until they become huge grievances crippling my entire relationship with them. I see this happening all around me in other people's lives too. People who should have spoken up when something was small and manageable allow it to grow and thrive until it takes over their entire relationship with their spouse, their family, a friend, their church. Before you know it the dandelions have taken over their yard and they have some MAJOR work to do in order to get control.

Kinda like this:

Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

James 1:15

So what's the plan of action then? I used to think my response was simply to root out that weed of sin every time it popped up in my heart and my relationships. However, this week looking around I realized that even if I had rooted up that very first dandelion, it likely would have been too late. That one weed would have likely already had little friends about to pop up all over. So here's what I advise when dealing with weeds (in your yard and your heart):

1. Root them out! Definitely yank that bad boy outta your yard or heart as soon as possible. The sooner the better! When your hubby's voice has a bit of an edge to it, when your BFF forgets your b-day, when your church fails to pray about your illness... address the hurt and pain but then LET GO and get rid of it!

2. Sprinkle some weed killer all about. It's not good enough to just root out that weed. You also have to take action against any friends that weed may have lurking about. I suggest when you root out a sin you IMMEDIATELY bathe your spirit in the word of God. If you are struggling with the sin of lust say. Turn your eyes from that person/thing you are lusting after the SECOND you realize you are lusting. Then immediately find all the scripture you can about lust and soak your spirit in those truths.

3. Protect your yard from your neighbors dandelions. Here's where my analogy goes a little off track, because you can't really do much in a yard situation. You can't pick up your yard and move it away from your neighbor's yard, BUT in life, you can physically remove yourself from the people around you who have weeds in their "yard". Surround yourself instead with people who's lawns are weed free and flourishing.

Well I hope my little rabbit trail on weeds got you thinking. Are there any weeds in your yard today? If so, I hope and pray you will root them out! spray some weed killer! and move your yard away from other weedy yards!

Have a GREAT day!