Take some time to think about your experience with “gardens.” Flower gardens, food gardens, rock gardens…etc. Weeding is one of the biggest obstacles to starting and keeping a garden. No matter how well one mulches and maintains the beds, weeds always seem to crop up – more intensely and frequently in some gardens than in others.

Is it just me, or doesn’t this situation bear more than a little resemblance to our own lives? Are not sins the weeds of our lives?

Weeding a garden is a fairly arduous process. No doubt, it requires commitment on the part of the gardener. Believe it or not, however, there are many benefits awaiting the weeding gardener:

• the privilege of being outdoors, spending special time with God and many of God’s creatures,
• physical activity. . . who of us doesn’t need it?!?,
• a better understanding and appreciation of the mystery of plant physiology and reproduction – what miraculous creatures they are!,
• perhaps a gradual but ever deepening realization of the similarity of weeding a garden and that of weeding our souls (example: no sin is so pernicious that we cannot “weed” it. Another example: like weeds, some sins return; but if we remain faithful to “weed,” God remains faithful to forgive and strengthen. . . Lessons learned doing repetitive, “lowly” work can often be much more profound than any learned by reading a book or attending a conference), and how about
• a beautiful garden!

Extension: Go out and offer your neighbors to help them weed their gardens. For best results, try to time your offer when they are in the act of weeding their gardens. That way, scheduling problems are less likely to result. Who knows, you may end up assisting them in weeding their souls as well. . . or at least offering them support as they undertake the task.