My Continuous Battle With Those Pesky Weeds. . .

Today I continued my annual battle (raging war) against weeds. Especially the dreaded Canadian thistle – those things drive me crazy! Mowing and “kill everything” weed sprays are in my arsenal and both have helped in lowering the population of the thistles. However, as hard as I try, those pesky things still seem to evade my efforts at total eradication. Even if I get every last one killed or cut on my property, the wind, or the birds, or the four footed creatures great and small re-infest my “clean” earth with seeds from my neighbors property! It is a losing battle, I cannot win, everyone and everything is against me.

Perhaps I am battling something bigger than my little piece of this earth. Just perhaps this plague with which I struggle is all Adam and Eve’s fault!

“And to the man He (God) said, “Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you. . . .” (Genesis 3:17-18, NLT)

Can you imagine how pristine and beautiful the Garden of Eden was before man was kicked out on his ear for disobeying his Creator? No Canadian thistles, no milk weed, no dandelions, no burdock, no weeds! Wow, sounds like heaven!

So today, as I continued waging a fierce frontal offensive against the invaders of my property, God whispered, in His not so subtle way, into my inner most being the spiritual truth behind the physical war in which I was engaged. Our conversation went something like this.

God: “Yo, Dude!” (He calls me that on occasion.)

Me: “Ahhhhh, yes Lord.”

God: “You know this battle you are fighting?”

Me: “Yes Lord.”

God: “First of all, quit blaming Adam and Eve. You would not have done any better. Believe Me, I know you.”

Me: “Oh, sorry Lord.”

God: “Second, these physical weeds are not the real battle. What about the “weeds” that are in your life?”

Me: “Ouch.”

As I meditated on our conversation, the comparison of physical weeds and spiritual sins became more and more obvious to me. While the Scriptures are clear that Jesus paid the price for the ultimate consequences of sin in a believer’s life (eternal death), the Word is also clear that every believer has a responsibility to battle against and wage war against the sins that try to grow up in that believer’s life.

Just like the physical weeds in the field, sins can look very attractive as they bloom and begin to grow. They are pretty and fragrant but they hide thorns and poison that will kill and destroy. They shade out spiritual growth if left to mature and as they go to seed they produce more and more corruption until there is no fertile ground left.

God has given each believer the responsibility, and the ability through the power of the Holy Spirit, to deal with these sins, these inner weeds, and to pull them out and overpower them with the Truth of the Word. As Paul says in Colossians 3:5 -- “. . . put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you.” This is not a onetime battle but a fight we must keep waging until the war is won and we hear our Savior greet us in Glory with the words: “Well done good and faithful servant.” If we let down and relax our offensive the “weeds” from neighboring lands will infest our soil again and begin to crowd out and destroy what is best.

Isn’t it interesting how the Lord can take the mundane struggle I am having with physical weeds and turn that situation into an absolutely amazing and convicting picture of the inner battle that I wage minute by minute against the fleshly nature that still resides within me? Again I stand in awe at how much He loves me, at how patient He is with me, and at how He is teaching me to focus more and more on Him. Thanks be to my God and Father! Amen.