When God Goes Weeding

     There are different weeds in gardens. Some have beautiful leaves and flowers, but strangle and kill the plants; others, like dandelion, are good and edible, but are not what one wants in the garden; still others are great trees providing shade and good produce and beautiful wood after they have fully grown, but would disrupt the entire garden. Thus the good gardener will remove these weeds in spite of how much the gardener likes the plant. Though he/she enjoys the taste of apples, he/she will remove such a sapling from the strawberry bed, or a grapevine from the corn rows, or wheat or hay from among the bean bushes. This past weekend I regretted having the task of taking up maple trees from among someone's bushes.
     However, this is the way life is. Our lives are like gardens in which we are to be diligent to remove anything that would diminish the crop. Often we are like young children in our little gardens not knowing our plants from the weeds. This is where our Father, the Master Gardener, comes and helps us; He shows us what plants are not wanted in the garden and helps pull them out. Though at times He will remove plants we have cared for. However, they must be removed because they were not planted properly, or it is not the right season for that plant, or they are not in the right place. These can be the hardest plants to pull out of the garden; good plants that must go simply because it is not the right season, they were planted incorrectly, or they are the wrong plant for the garden. So too good things in life can be weeds: a spouse, a home, a job, a car, money, or even a ministry.  This is not to say that one should quit a job or ministry or get a divorce because he/she feel that it is a weed in his/her life. Do your best to honour God where you are at and He will reveal how you are to proceed, one step at a time (I Corinthians 7:17-31). But especially in the case of divorce, two wrongs do not make a right (see Matthew 19:1-9 and I Corinthians 7:10-16).  
     God may keep these things (a marriage, job, or ministry) back or even remove them from your garden for something better or for the soil, which is yourself, to be made ready for it at another time, for the soil of a garden must be prepared before it can yield a harvest. Your life must also be worked and prepared in order to receive that which God has in store. "Therefore. . . let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith" (Hebrews 12:1-2a).