God is not weed whacker!

One of the very cool things about my relationship with God is how He speaks to me.  Not that He doesn't speak to everyone but it seems that He picks ways of communicating that fits with our brain's way of thinking or learning best.  A book person learns from reading and I can imagine they hear God best while reading God's word, the Bible.  Perhaps a music person is touched most during a beautiful symphony or even during worship.  Me, I always thought I was a book person, I love to read but it seems that God teaches me through nature and analogy.  I suppose that makes sense doesn't it since Jesus taught in parables!  I feel like God is often showing me something through a parable!  Take my garden for instance...

I am not a gardener.  Let's clear that up first and foremost.  My dad has 10 green thumbs.  Well, not really but anything he attempts to grow, grows.  I don't know that he has ever managed to kill anything and if it's close to death he miraculously brings it back to life!  Me, not so much.  I kill things.  I don't do it on purpose.  I just have no clue what to do with green things.  So, we came up with this bright idea that I needed a garden.  Well, actually it was WE needed a garden and I should be the one to tend it.  Isn't that about how it always goes!?  So, 3 summers ago my lovely friend Johnnie helped me plant a garden because she's another person with 10 green thumbs.  The garden actually grew and it actually had things in it like tomatoes, peppers, squash, zuccini, pumpkins and a few other goodies here and there.  I never weeded it.  I can't say I remember weeding it even once.  Maybe my kids did.  But in spite of never being weeded it grew things!  I was so amazed!  And what lesson did God teach me from this?  That as a Christian, even if I NEVER weed my spiritual garden I cannot help but grow fruit!  He is the vine, we are the branches!  As long as we remain in Him we will bear much fruit!  It doesn't say as long as we keep our garden weeded we'll bear much fruit!  Not that we should purposefully sin either, I'm not talking rebellion!  But I mean those things in our flesh that we just can't seem to get out of our system.  In spite of our flesh, in spite of our old man who has been put to death, we carry around weeds in our 'garden' and God will cause us to grow fruit in spite of it!  Sometimes we just can't see the fruit because those darn weeds are so thick!

On to year two... Last summer we planted a 2nd garden again with the help of my friend, Johnnie!  The garden was expanded and new things added such as corn!  Yummy!  Now when  corn is planted the seeds are supposed to remain shallow in the soil but we had a little helper (Johnnie's cute as a bug grandson) who pushed the seeds down deeper for us!  So we wondered if that corn would even pop up!  More on this in a second.  This time I weeded the garden.  I took time out of my 'busy' schedule and sat in the dirt popping weeds out of the ground.  And my garden produced tomatoes, peppers, squash, zuccini; well, you get it!  I spent intimate time with my garden, had a relationship with my garden and out of it came an abundance of goodies plus I didn't have to dig through weeds to find those goodies!  They were evident for all to see!!  And that corn, it grew and it produced two to three times more than we expected!  How good is God!?  We can never write anything or anyone for that matter off!  Nothing is too deep in our soul that God cannot reach and tend to.  What seems impossible to man is possible with God!  So I learned that if I spent time with God and plucked those weeds out of my life my fruit would be healthier, more plentiful and more evident!  All this I learned from 2 gardens and I'm not even a gardener! 

This year we'll be planting our 3rd garden and as I contemplate what will be planted there I am also already learning a lesson from it.  As I have already divulged in my first post, I am a worrier.  I've never worried over my garden though.  I've always just let it be a garden, what it was meant to be.  I didn't worry when I didn't weed it and I didn't worry when I did!!  I just trusted that it would do what it was supposed to do naturally.  Why do we worry that we need to take after the 'weeds' in someone else's life?  So here's the thing... I'd never take a weed whacker into my garden.  Why?  Two reasons; one, a weed whacker does not differentiate between a weed and a plant.  Two, it doesn't take care of the roots.  It only whacks weeds off at the surface but it can't reach down into the soil and pull up the whole thing.  There are people who are the weed whackers of the Christian faith.  They feel the need to just go into other people's gardens and start whacking at those weeds or they tell people that they should be taking weed whackers to their gardens.  Fortunately for me I have had people in my life that have taught me that weed whackers have no place in a physical garden so I've never attempted it and know better!  But young, immature and inexperienced Christians may not know that a weed whacker in their spiritual life is not a good idea.  See, God is not a weed whacker. 

God sits with us.  He cultivates us.  He shares time with us.  And if we are willing and we allow a relationship with Him to form He plucks weeds carefully pulling them out at the root.  Some are tougher than others and take more time but He's God, He has all the time in the world!!  He isn't impatient with us.  He doesn't expect us to 'weed' our entire life in the first 10 minutes of being a Christian.  He is the gentle gardener.  Aren't you glad?  As a worrier, I feel that I am often misunderstood.  My worry just looks like complaining but it isn't.  It's fear.  It's mistrust.  It's not knowing my personal gardener well enough.  I've had people come at me with weed whackers wanting to whack the worry right out of me!  I know their intentions were good but I will tell you that they lacked relationship with me and because of that they could never get to the root.  And they can't see the 'fruit' for the weeds so risk tearing at fruit instead.  God is not that way with us.  He is calling me to a greater relationship with Him.  He wants to sit with me in the cool of the evening popping weeds, pulling them out at the root so that my fruit can be healthy and be seen.  He loves me that much. 

So, are you a weed whacker?  Don't despair if you are.  I was too.  But now I see that people want and need relationship first before they're going to allow someone into their 'garden'.  Weeding is an intimate process and requires time, patience and relationship.  Weeding by hand is all about relationship while weed whacking is merely about immediate results.  Do you merely want results?  Or do you desire a relationship?

I want a relationship with my God.  And He wants one with me.  Isn't He great?