Lifescaping Devotional // Weeding

Weeding

Weeding can sometimes feel like a never ending job. But it is necessary in order to maintain a clean appearance on campus. It is also a required task if we want the good plants to keep growing and thriving. As far as landscaping tasks go, weeding is one of the more simple tasks. As long as you know what plants belong, you can simply remove all the other plants. Well, I’ve learned recently that weeding can be executed in different ways.

Sometimes, when people work too quickly or don’t use the proper tools the weeds get broken off. From a distance the flower bed looks a lot better without the weeds overtaking the flowers. But if you look closely there are little stubs where the weeds were simply chopped down to a short stalk.

In order to allow the flowers to grow their best, however, the weeds must be removed entirely. Roots and all. When cut off to short stubs, the weeds grow back quickly. For a short time the flower bed looks much better than it did before, but soon the weeds are overtaking the flowers again. When the weeds are removed completely, by the roots, the flower bed is not only gorgeous, but it is much healthier. And it takes much longer for the weeds to come back. And they usually come back fewer each time.

Like the plants around campus, our lives require sprucing, pruning, and weeding. If we compare the weeds in the flower beds to sins in our lives, the object lesson becomes clear quite quickly. If we rush to eliminate the weeds and sins in our lives, we will probably appear better than before. But we haven’t really removed the sins’ strongholds in our lives. We must carefully and methodically remove the sins from our lives. We have to go deep and grasp the weed in such a way that the root of it comes out too. Then our garden hearts will flourish.

Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

Proverbs 28:13

 

If you missed the introduction to the series find it here: Introduction

If you missed part one find it here: Dirty Hands

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this devotional or the series as a whole! How will you apply these principals in your life? I’d also like to hear your thoughts about my blog content. Would you like to see more devotional series in the future? More blog posts similar to the ones I wrote while in Papua Indonesia? Something completely different?