The problem with yard work.

Weeds are evil. Straight from Satan. There are a number of things that get me riled up. They include taxes, bad mexican food, fluffy things , and weeds. But lately it's been the weeds that have gotten to me. Here's why:

For all of you who don't have yards, weeds just spring out over night. There's no explaining it. You go to bed with perfectly clean flowerbed or yard and you wake up and it looks like you've abandoned your yard for months. It's so frustrating. The weeds in our yard picked the prime time to sprout. It was during a week where it rained part of everyday so that yard work wasn't an option. Then we went out of town for the weekend....the weeds grew and grew. Then they called their friends from my neighbors yard to come and grow. When we got back everything was covered. the flowerbeds, the yard, that area around the mailbox that is supposed to be decorative, everywhere.

So this past Sunday night I set out to begin to rid my yard of weeds. I worked for an hour and really put a dent in the amount of work that I have left to do. But as I weeded, I learned something. I hate weeds. Because the weeds were given so long to grow, they began to grow with the other plants. I was having trouble telling which one was which. Is this a flower or is this a weed? One of my wife's pansies (is that not a ridiculously stupid name for a plant?) just happened to be intertwined with some weeds. That poor pansy never saw it coming. Unfortunately I didn't see it either and so I ripped both of them out of the ground.

Weeding is never fun. It's somewhat easy if you catch the weed right as it's growing out of the soil. But if by chance you don't get to it and it grows for a week, it's much more diffecult to get it out without some sort of damage.

This goes the same for sin in our life. It creeps in out of no where. Often times we rationalize our way into sin. We tell ourselves that it's ok. It's not hurting anyone. The mexican food looks good here( ok maybe not that one). Sin creeps in and springs up overnight. If we address it immediately it's not hard to get rid of. It's simple to go to God and look for forgiveness.

It's different when we let sin grow into our lives. Sin becomes a part of us. Something that we live. Something that we live for. It happens to all of us. Pride. Anger. Jealousy. Lust. Selfishness. If we let those things continue to grow they become so intertwined in our lives that when we do finally decide to return to God it's much harder. We almost have to uproot the entire way that we live in order to get away from the sin that entangles us.

the problem with yard work is that it's hard. No one really likes to do it. You have to get your hands dirty and get on your hands and knees and dig. It's almost humbling in a way. If you are down on your hands and knees weeding in your yard and someone drives by it feels as if you are saying "Hey, don't mind me, I have a lot of crap in my yard!" Often we do the opposite in our lives. When people inquire about how we are doing we say things like "I'M GREAT! LIFE IS GREAT! " when in reality we have weeds growing everywhere.

My thought is this. Perhaps a little life maintenance is on order. I think it's time for us to take a look at our lives and start to do some weeding. What do you think?

me