The weeds had overtaken my beautiful garden! My husband did a great job of watering the flowers and vegetables while I was away on the mission trip to Mexico, but I knew he wouldn’t do anything else. He isn’t a gardener, and that is ok. I had accepted the fact that I had my work cut out for me when I got home and was just thankful I still had a garden to weed.

I grabbed my gardening gloves, clippers, spade, hoe, and trusty little garden wagon. As I stood at the edge of the garden assessing the damage, I was determined to make it even more beautiful than when I left…. although I knew it would be a lot of hard work in a very hot sun. I had divided the garden up in sections with a plan to work one section at a time and taking a break between each section. I didn’t want to feel overwhelmed, so I felt this plan would help me feel accomplished and not burn myself out too quickly. Starting early in the morning, I completed the first section that contained a dwarf Japanese Maple Tree and an old tree stump that I had dragged out of the woods one day. It has a couple of flowers around it. After a short break, section two involved weeding around the Knock Out Rose bushes and Hollyhocks. During my break, my husband meandered through the garden and made a comment about how there were still so many weeds in the parts that I hadn’t worked on yet…. sections three through five!! Of course he was unaware of the system I was using, so I used that as the excuse to not smack him with whatever garden tool I happened to be holding at the time. When I pointed out the first two sections I had completed, he just shrugged and said, “Not bad!” and moseyed on back to whatever he had been doing before his uninvited and unappreciated disruption.

After my husband left and I started working on the third section, I began to think about how God has used a garden so many times throughout scripture. I meet up with the Lord every morning in my garden (or front porch if it’s raining) for coffee and a time to talk with Him about His plans for my day. Just as He gave Adam and Eve the Garden of Eden to tend it and watch over it, I work in my garden to keep it beautiful and weed-free. However, as I pondered the situation I was currently in and seeing all those weeds, I thought about how weeds represent circumstances, situations, or people that take over our lives in negative ways if we are not careful. Jesus said that with the wheat will come weeds. These unwanted pests are going to appear whether we like it or not just like they show up in a garden. Our goal as Christians is to deal with the ‘weeds’ appropriately, so I thought I would pass along five tips that God shared with me as I continued pulling up weeds…

1. Work in the garden every single day! Daily weeding, cultivating the dirt, adding fertilizer occasionally, deadheading flowers, pruning plants, and watering helps the gardener stay ahead of the weeds and allows the flowers and vegetables to grow, flourish, and produce a harvest. Similarly, we as Christians need to spend time with God every single day!! Read and study His Word, talk to Him, meet Him at church, sing to Him, thank Him for the blessings, and share His story with anyone and everyone who will listen. Also, work on eliminating the weeds in your life. Do you have a bad habit or addiction you need to kick? Do you spend too much time on social media? Is there a family member or friend that you need to reconcile with? Are you reading in appropriate books or watching in appropriate TV shows?

2. Always pull the roots out with the weed! The gardener has to grasp the weed at the very bottom of the stem, get her hands in the dirt, and pull with all of her might. If she doesn’t get the roots, the weed just keeps coming back. Sometimes, it even returns with a vengeance. If you answered yes to any of the questions above, or discovered other ‘weeds’ in your life, get to the root of the problem to fully eliminate it. Otherwise, it will just plague you again and again and again.

3. Get help for deep-rooted weeds! When a weed has roots that go deep into the ground, oftentimes the gardener needs to use a tool to help get below the surface. This allows her to get leverage under the root for a better chance at pulling it out. The Christian has many tools available to eliminate ‘weeds’ include the Bible, prayer, the pastor at your church, the women’s fellowship group, worship services, and more. If you struggle with a deep-rooted weed that is going to take a long time to pull out of your life, you may consider asking a mature Christian to be your mentor and support.

4. Accept the fact that you cannot pull all the weeds at once! If a gardener does face a weed coup and takeover of a garden, she must first realize that she is not going to be able to pull all the weeds all at once. Breaking a garden up into smaller sections and focusing on one section at a time makes the job more manageable and less overwhelming. Most Christians are walking around with a lot of ‘weeds’ in their life. Some are big. Some are small. But where there is one problem, there is usually multiple. We can’t become perfect overnight. In fact, we will never become perfect, but we can work on eliminating the big ‘weeds’ and being proactive to prevent the little ‘weeds’ from sprouting up and getting out of hand.

5. Ignore the weed critics! The gardener works hard in her garden to be successful. But no one ever really sees all of the work she puts into it. When the neighbor walks over to chat with the gardener, bends down to pull a rogue weed and states, “Missed one”, the gardener doesn’t let it bother her. She knows she worked tirelessly for hours on that section and that her friend has no idea just how bad it looked earlier that morning. Most Christians work very hard to kick those bad habits or addictions, switch from Facebook the Bible app, making amends with that family member to repair the relationship, lay down the book and turn off the TV. People will judge you for the one single ‘weed’ that you missed without ever knowing how hard you have worked, how much trust and faith you put into God for help, how many hours you prayed. Don’t let it bother you, because the Master Gardener is fully aware of all the tears you cried, scratches you earned, the dirt under your fingernails, the broken gardening tools, the flowers that you pulled up by accident, and the piles of weeds you have placed in the compost pile. In the end, that is all that really matters.

God has placed you in this garden called life. Weeds are going to come and go with the wheat just as Jesus said. Be diligent, stay strong, and keep your focus on the Master Gardener to enjoy the fruits of your labor. And enjoy God’s presence in your garden each and every day!