Gardening at Serve Day
Gardening. I love it. I’ll take the opportunity to pull weeds, plant flowers, prune hedges, etc. on most any day. That said, I got to spend a couple of hours gardening in the side yard at New Hope for Kids in Maitland yesterday. It was another big Serve Day at Northland and so me and about 30 other people went to serve the folks at New Hope. We split up into groups for different tasks and of course I went straight for the landscaping crew. We were to rake, pull weeds and bag up the yard debris. We received one request from one of the directors - shake off the dirt when pulling the weeds - it can make the bags heavier than they need to be and they don’t want to throw out the dirt - just the weeds and debris.
So we got busy weed-pulling. And every time I get to gardening and pulling weeds my mind quiets down and I get reminded that my heart is fertile ground for weeds of sin; envy, worry, disbelief, lack of trust, greed, you name it. As I’m pulling literal weeds I’m asking Jesus to “search my heart and pull out the weeds.” Yeah I know, that’s not “exactly” how the verse goes... it’s:
What was cool was the next step after pulling the weed: shaking off the dirt that was supporting the weed. This said a couple of things to me. My heart was available to the sin and then sustained it by having other good parts of my heart involved. Clearly, it’s time for the sin to be confessed and pulled out so that I can be again led “along the path of everlasting life.” The part of my heart that was sustaining the sin gets separated from the sin and left to rejoin the rest of my heart in its original purpose: to support life-giving, sustaining practices in the communities God’s given me. Learning how to be more like Jesus, and putting it into practice: doing life together in a small group, being involved in missional ways at church, serving one another inside and outside the church, discipling and encouraging others toward growth.
Holy Spirit, thank you for taking weed-pulling to the next level. Please point out the sin in my heart, take it out shake off the good parts of my heart that got wrapped up in the sin and restore my heart for the glory of God and His purposes.
So we got busy weed-pulling. And every time I get to gardening and pulling weeds my mind quiets down and I get reminded that my heart is fertile ground for weeds of sin; envy, worry, disbelief, lack of trust, greed, you name it. As I’m pulling literal weeds I’m asking Jesus to “search my heart and pull out the weeds.” Yeah I know, that’s not “exactly” how the verse goes... it’s:
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”
What was cool was the next step after pulling the weed: shaking off the dirt that was supporting the weed. This said a couple of things to me. My heart was available to the sin and then sustained it by having other good parts of my heart involved. Clearly, it’s time for the sin to be confessed and pulled out so that I can be again led “along the path of everlasting life.” The part of my heart that was sustaining the sin gets separated from the sin and left to rejoin the rest of my heart in its original purpose: to support life-giving, sustaining practices in the communities God’s given me. Learning how to be more like Jesus, and putting it into practice: doing life together in a small group, being involved in missional ways at church, serving one another inside and outside the church, discipling and encouraging others toward growth.
Holy Spirit, thank you for taking weed-pulling to the next level. Please point out the sin in my heart, take it out shake off the good parts of my heart that got wrapped up in the sin and restore my heart for the glory of God and His purposes.
~Soli Deo gloria~
Comments