Weeds
I hated pulling weeds as a child. During the summer my parents would give me to-do lists which usually consisted of cleaning the bathrooms, cleaning my room, and worst of all, pulling weeds. I would do everything in my power to avoid this task, but this avoidance would never make the weeds go away. They would continue to grow and worsen the longer I put off the job. When I would finally go out to get it over with, I would sulk. A one-hour task would become an all-day task as I would sulk and complain about my disdain for weeding. I hated it.
Twenty years later I find myself pulling weeds once again. I had left my yard unkept and put off the task of weeding until it was an eyesore to the whole neighborhood. Why can’t weeds just, I don’t know, not grow? The yard work never ends, whether you have a lush lawn or bare desert landscaping. Living in the Arizona desert I have the former, a desert landscape dotted with cacti and hundreds of weeds. A month prior the yard looked pristine, but the recent winter rains turned the yard green — it’s not supposed to be green. Putting off the task was only making the infestation worse, so this particular Saturday I sought to pull the weeds and found I didn’t hate it near as much as before. In fact, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed pulling the weeds.
I had neighbors walk by providing commentary on my job, offering their advice that I should go buy weed killer, spray the yard, and forget about it. It would be the easy option, but I enjoyed pulling them one at a time. Eventually, one of our neighbors, a kind elderly woman walked on by and commended me for taking the time to work and keep the garden with my own hands. She went on to talk about how people nowadays look for the easy option, the quick fix for problems, and forsake the gritty tasks that need to be done. She helped me realize why I now loved pulling weeds. It wasn’t just about the weeds. The task forced me to slow down, to focus on pulling out the weeds that didn’t belong one at a time, slowly from the root. It was hard work, and the soil was not eager to give up the weeds. It brought me back to the initial charge given to mankind:
“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” Genesis 2:15 ESV
The task of cultivating the earth, tending the garden, and working with the soil with one’s own hands was one that was good, long before the birth of sin during the fall. Yet even here the act of gardening only scratches the surface. The Hebrew words used for work it and keep it are the very same used for worship and obey. This was the task given to mankind, to worship and obey the Lord, and to tend and keep the garden. The act of gardening requires the pulling of weeds over and over again, it’s a task of cultivation that never ends and allows the garden to grow richer, healthier, and more beautiful as fruit begins to show. Likewise, the act of worshiping and obeying the Lord is one of cultivation and the renewing of the mind. It’s an act of sanctification, growing ever more into Christ-likeness. It’s an act of repenting of one’s sin, of removing the temptations and sinful habits from one’s life and diving deeper into the Word, into prayer, into the Christian life, and closer to Christ. It’s an act of pulling weeds, of working and keeping the garden of one’s own soul — an act of worshiping and obeying while the Lord does his work in each and every one of His own.
No amount of neglect can remove the weeds of sin and guilt from our lives, they must be uprooted completely to allow the soul to be sanctified and healed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Only through this can the fruit of the Spirit be evident in the life of the believer. After two hours of weeding alone with my thoughts, I came to the conclusion that weeds are still terrible, just like sin. Weeds are terrible, but weeding is great, it renews the yard and keeps the HOA away.
