During our time at Manna Church, my team had the task of gardening. Gardening is hard work. It requires a lot of diligence, bending over all day long, looking for weeds, pulling them up, and looking for more. Some roots come up easy, just a light tug and POP- out it comes. Those are the weeds that I like to pull. It’s easy, and usually it doesn’t cause a lot of damage to the ground or other plants around it. Sometimes, after you pull it up, you can’t even tell it had been there before. Those are nice weeds to pull.
However, just like life, there are easy weeds to pull and then there are harder weeds to pull. We started referring to these weeds as demon weeds. (It might seem a little harsh, but they were so stubborn to come up that they quickly deserved the name). These weeds sometimes were big on the surface, but a lot of times they were quite small. They seemed harmless, like they would come right up. But once you started to pull, you realized that it was going to take a little more work to get it out.
Sometimes you could dig up the ground around it a bit and that would be enough to get it free. Other times it would take a lot of leg strength. You’d have to grab on, squat down and use all your strength to get it up. But those weeds would hang on for dear life! You could grunt, pull, twist, dig all you want, but those things were not coming up. Sure, you could just tear the top off of it and bury the root again. It does make it look good from the outside. But when you leave the root, it doesn’t really take care of the problem. Eventually, the weed will grow back and the fight will start all over again.
As we were fighting with these demon weeds one morning, one of my team mates said that it reminded her of ourselves. We all have struggles, whether its past hurts, sins, whatever, we all have them. These are our weeds. They can damage us. You see, one thing that weeds often do it that their roots attach and entangle around plants close by. They choke out the plants. That’s another reason why it’s important to pull them up. They choke out the life of a garden.
Sometimes, our weeds are easy to pull. God is the Gardener. He makes us aware of them. He says, “See this little weed over here, why don’t we pull that up?” He sees how it can be a threat to our life and He wants to get rid of them. He is always gentle in this process. We let Him pull the little weeds and see the relief it brings. We go “Oh, that was easy.” and breathe a sigh of relief. Other times, we have those stubborn demon weeds. They don’t look like much. God points them our and we say “Ok, let’s pull that one up too.” But as God starts to uproot it, we realize that there is so much more involved than we had anticipated. It’s harder, it’s painful even. We decide that maybe we should just leave it there. Maybe we can just take the top off and bury the root and it will be okay. We can make ourselves appear put together, appear like we are all right when really that root is sprouting again. Sooner or later, it will pop back up and we’ll have to start the process all over again.
God gives us the choice. We can allow Him to uproot things, or we can hold onto them. We end up being the stubborn root. But God loves us so much, that He refuses to leave us there. He will allow us to hold on, but things always have a way of coming back around. It is when we have completely exhausted ourselves, pulling and digging, that He comes to us again. With His strength, He helps us to pull out the weeds. And I tell you, there is nothing that feels more satisfying than when a stubborn weed finally comes out.
God wants to help us pull the weeds out of our lives. It can be painful, but it is so worth it. There is healing in the uprooting. There is love and comfort from God during the process. I want to encourage you, no matter how difficult it can be, there is satisfaction in the uprooting. It’s painful, but only for a moment. God used this example to help reveal the weeds in my life that I had been ignoring. I had ripped the tops off, but the roots were still there. So now I ask you, what weeds do you have in your life? Maybe God wants to help you weed the garden of your heart. I promise you, it is worth it. The fruits from your labor will be seen and felt. He’s always there, just waiting for you to say “yes”.
