Weed the Garden

Over the past few weeks, Mark has been telling me how bad the flower beds are - the weeds are taking over. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate gardening and anything that requires much upkeep. I'm definitely not the green thumb type. Low maintenance = great for me. All along I'd see a weed creeping in, but I'd ignore it. After all, it was a lone weed. Then there'd be two, then ten, then who knows how many, until it looked like I had planted grass instead of roses and mums.

Last week I decided enough was enough and that I should just grit my teeth and weed the flower beds. While I was sweating away, I kept asking myself "Why did you ever let it get this bad?" It took forever and a day to get it all done. But while I was stooped over, pulling away, I thought, wow, how this applies to every day life. How often do we let one little weed (ie. sin) creep in and dismiss it as only a 'minor' sin? I mean, how's one show with a little language or inappropriate subject matter going to hurt anything? Next thing we know, we're saying, what's saying a little cuss word really matter? How about porn, gossipping, stealing, anger outbursts, or you name it. Then before too long, we find ourselves entangled in a mess of weeds that we let creep in.... one by one. Then we're stuck trying to fix the mess we let happen in the first place.

Why is it that we're willing to bite at the one by one ploy but not at some obvious attack? The answer is because the lone weed never seems like a ploy or an attack. It just seems like, well, a lone weed... until we find ourselves ensnared by all the lone weeds that are now the army we face.

So, the next time you see a "weed", uproot it before it becomes an army.