I happen to love flowers but when it comes to gardening, I don't exactly have what you call a "green thumb". Years ago when we moved in, someone hired someone to plant fire bushes behind my house. They are absolutely beautiful in the fall but I never mulch, soil, re-plant (all of those other words that are foreign to me) and every year they get overgrown with ugly weeds. Last year it got so bad that one of them actually died. I spent hours hacking down the weeds and had this (what I thought at the time) this amazing epiphany about how my life was like those fire bushes and suddenly I had this great sermon or devotional or lesson or...something eloquent.
And yet, I let it all happen again this year. This year it was so bad that you could tell that more than just one of the bushes had been killed (the life had literally been sucked out of them) by weeds. It was ugly. And the task seemed daunting. So the other day, I looked over at them, walked into the garage, picked up the trimmers and started hacking away. And I had the following thoughts:
1. There are so many times that I wanted to get rid of those weeds. But I never felt like I could. I always felt like I needed to properly prepare before I could begin. I would need the right tools: gardening gloves, trash can, sharp weed trimmers, weed and grass killer, sunscreen, bug spray, a book How to Kill Weeds for Dummies, a tall glass of iced tea freshly brewed from the Hardees in my hometown...
2. Sometimes when we approach God, we do the same thing. We think we have to get all of the right "tools" together first. Find a Bible study, the right church, some "better" friends, stop doing all of the bad stuff we do, wait until Jan. 1st so we can do one of those "read the Bible in a year" check lists...
3. But in both cases, sometimes you just have to jump right in. If you wait to get everything set up just right, well, you probably never will.
I chopped weeds. I got sun burnt. I was even bit by some red ants. There were weeds that were wrapped so tightly around some of those plants that I couldn't even figure out where they began. I didn't know where to cut them off at their root. So I just cut them where I saw them. And I didn't know if I was doing it "by the book". But I was doing it. AND, I didn't even finish. My children didn't last long playing quietly by themselves and soon I was distracted. I dreamed of a landscaper who could do it all for me. I dreamed that I could make it all perfect in a day. I wanted it all gone. I wanted it all perfect. RIGHT NOW.
But God doesn't work that way.
Some of my beautiful bushes are dead because I didn't tend to them. The weeds overtook them. I did what I could. But there were two that were so overgrown with weeds that I couldn't tell if they were alive or dead.
I was determined to find out.
I yanked and I pulled (Heave Ho, Heave Ho) and I chopped. There was a moment when I thought, what if there is a snake in here, but I kept going anyway. (In my moments of determination I am a heroine, Wonder Woman, if you will) And then, there they were. They were still beautiful. You just couldn't see them until I cut down all of those ugly weeds.
I sighed. Sat down. Quickly jumped up because I was sitting on pricker bushes and it hurt like heck. So I stood in admiration. They were okay. There IS always hope.
Sometimes you just have to jump right in. The water is cold when you just stick in a toe. People might seem unfriendly when you first go to a church before you bother getting to know them. Christianity seems like just too much to live up to sometimes.
I was negligent when I let those weeds grow. I didn't really understand the damage they could do. It's just like letting those "little" things into our lives that we don't think won't cause that much harm. Except that they can.
I'm sure there are lots of preachers who have preached plenty of sermons on weeds. But from my personal experience...well, I don't like those weeds very much. They cover up all of the beauty of my plants. My yard won't be featured in a magazine anytime soon but when I look outside, I see hope and determination and...freedom.
I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5
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