Weeding & Nutrients

 

Weeding.  It’s the chore that always seems to creep up on me in the summer.  Whether it is weeding a flower bed, a vegetable bed or even weeds that grow within the grass, weeds seem to love the heat of the summer.  Timing for weeding can be a bit difficult.  If a person weeds often, trying to pull out the little weeds can be difficult; there may not be much weed to hold onto.  If a person waits too long to weed, the weed can take over the bed and they are very large.  Therefore, weeding is one of those chores that can be tough to manage.

Weeding is important.  If weeds are allowed to grow, they truly can suck the life out of the plants that need the nutrients from the soil.  Instead of the good items of the soil providing assistance for plants to grow, the weeds gain some of the ‘good stuff’, not allowing full growth to take place for the plants.  The other part of weeding that is important is truly the visual aspect of weeds.  Although some weeds can be ‘pretty’, most do not provide a pleasing visual value to vegetable or flower beds.  Ahhh, the turmoil of weeding!

I’ve always likened weeds to sins.  There are sins that are ‘little’ and sins that are ‘big’, just like weeds.  Yet all sins can suck the life out of us.  With the Holy Spirit tucked into our souls, sin can cause great disruption and weigh heavy on our shoulders.  This can drain us of the goodness in life and doesn’t provide us the nutrients to grow.  When sin takes over our souls, we can become incapable of growing with God.  All we do is focus on all the bad of evil and we don’t concentrate on all the goodness, or salvation, that Jesus has provided us. 

Think about it!  We are the plant, sin is the weed and Jesus is the nutrients.  When we sin and focus on our sin, Jesus cannot enter the plant (us) and provide us the necessary nutrients, his mercy and grace.  So how do we go about weeding out our sins?  The glory of confession and forgiveness!  By confessing our sins and asking for Jesus’ forgiveness, we weed our souls of sin and we let Jesus’ nutrients of forgiveness and salvation fill us up.  Just as the angels in this verse weed out sin, we have the ability to weed out the sin in our lives as well.

We can be overcome by many things in this world.  Hatred, anger, jealousy, and unkindness can be some of the sin that can fill our souls, especially in a world that can focus on the negative versus the positive.  Let’s take an opportunity to rid the weeds of sin and hatred and let the nutrients of love and Jesus fill us up.  Be grateful that Jesus provides us a way to rid the weeds and made us strong!

Dearest Jesus, thank you for ‘weeding’ our souls and providing us ‘nutrients’ to replace the weeds.  Help us to reflect on our sins, ask for forgiveness and lead us to a life of ‘nutrients’ and love with you.  Amen