Growing With the Help of the Great GardenerSample

Weeds As Well?!

All in all, I got 2 tiny cucumbers out of my many weeks of dedicated care for those veggies. It seems I have much to learn. No matter how much you try to look after things, sometimes you just don’t win!

Luckily, during this whole process, I didn’t also have to combat weeds, too much sun, too little water, bad soil, and whatever else a gardener might be up against.

The type of soil and environment where you are planting a seed or plant is just as important as the environments in which we plant ourselves. The soil is our foundation that holds us up. It is made up of our values and beliefs. Our human heart is also like soil. Things grow there – thoughts, ideas, attitudes. Some things that grow are good. But some aren’t.

In our life environment, there can be weeds like bad influences, bad habits, negative thoughts, and poor choices. And these weeds can appear out of nowhere! Sometimes these weeds even look like plants or flowers and we don’t even know that we have problems in disguise.

Is the soil you are currently planted in giving you good experiences and positive relationships to help you grow?

What nutrients or things are surrounding you that help you to grow and thrive? Or what thoughts and attitudes do you have growing in your heart soil? Are the things around you that make up your living environment helping you to grow and flourish?

Or are you currently planted in loose sandy soil that is lacking in good substance and nutrients like good influences? Is your life environment filled with rocks? Lots of challenges? Unhealthy habits? Do you get the analogy? There is a lot we can learn from nature!

A comforting piece of information is that weeds are generally easier to pull out than a bush that has an established root system. So even though weeds are annoying, grow fast and frequently, and some have spikes, they are mostly fairly easy to pull out especially when they are smaller. Maybe that is motivation to address our less-God characteristics and behaviors before they grow too much…

Even in the most beautiful of gardens, weeds grow and need to be pulled. If you think about a garden around a castle…how can it look like there are never any weeds? The Great Gardener wanders the gardens all the time to pick the weeds, water the plants, and tend to the gardens. He has a constant awareness of what is happening in the garden and is always there to help.

The question is, have you asked The Gardener to come and tend to your life?

Dear Creator of the world,

Thank you for tending to the garden of my life.

Please continue to work in my life and help me to see the ‘weeds’ that need attention and that you will help remove what shouldn’t be there.

Thank you for wanting to provide the best for me.

Amen.