Sometimes the best life lessons are learned in unexpected moments.
Sometimes the mundane is when God reveals the most.
Take the construction work we do each day here in Transnistria.
By the time 2:00pm rolls around, we are already tired from teaching English all morning and the last thing I want to do is manual labor during the hottest part of the day.
[Obviously a nap seems like a way better option]
But that is when I reminded myself to choose into ministry because an adventure like this doesn’t happen often. Therefore on this particular day I had to choose into pulling weeds in the backyard–and I’m talking weeds that are 4 feet tall.
I didn’t want to clean out these weeds at first. I didn’t see the big deal in just keeping them there. They weren’t really hurting anyone but I figured it would be easy. It wasn’t until I began the process of pulling the weeds up that I realized how many there were and how deep some of the roots went into the ground.
The tall weeds at the surface were easy to pull up. They are easily noticeable and I don’t exhaust much effort to get rid of them.
And then came the nasty little ones that were hidden deep underneath the ground.
And good gracious they were deep. Some of them I pulled with all my strength but could not get them out. The first level of weeds were easy and kinda fun to pull up, but once I got to the nasty little ones I began to get frustrated. I wanted them to come up easy like the other ones. Some were so deep that I had to have other people help me pull them out.
So for 3 hours I pulled weeds with my 6 teammates. And for 3 hours God started revealing something to me: The weeds that my heart holds.
This quickly became much more than a mindless task in the middle of a fake country.
This became a time for God to start gardening my heart.
Most of my weeds have been there for a long time. I haven’t seen any harm in them staying there. They haven’t bothered me much…that of course was until I started pulling them up. The big ones are always easy to spot and easy to remove. They hide what’s beneath the surface. It’s not until pulling up the big ones that I even recognized how deep some of the roots up.
They hurt to pull up.
They are frustrating to pull up.
Some are so deep that I’ve finally realize that I can’t do it on my own. I have to let people help me pull them up.
I have to let GOD help me pull them up.
The process is often tiring and painful but the results are beautiful and produce ground for a new beginning.
So here’s to letting God till the garden of my heart.
It’s always worth it in the end.
What are the roots that you are not letting God pull up?
What are the weeds that you need to let others around you help pull up?
[Don’t fear the process. The work is always worth the pain]
