Seeds, Weeds and Roots – Gardening!

Here in the UK Midlands, we’ve had a fair bit of rain this Spring and Summer and of course the vegetation and greenery is, well, green.

Very green and lush and flourishing!

I’ve been out mowing, pruning, training, cutting back and weeding several times already, but still it needs doing over again.

A lot of the front and back garden is a glorious display of roses, flowering bushes, herbs, fruits, foxgloves and other exciting flowers, plants and bushes; but some growing things are unwelcome guests, partly because they spread their seeds or roots so rapidly that they suffocate the plants I’m trying to grow.

Yesterday my head was like that.

My discombobulated response to a conversation from the evening before, was suffocating my joy and hindering my peace.

Then a text message further triggered a rebellious and offended response.

I was wilting!!

I did my best to deal with these prayerfully and to write out my feelings – my perceived wounds and offenses – and to see where I needed to forgive and what I needed to do about it. I knew that to do nothing was to invite these bitter fruits to spread their invasive, destructive seeds throughout my day and to sully these relationships.

Having identified the wounds and feelings, I did my best to express these in love to those concerned, admitting that I knew there were deeper roots, of which these responses were just evidence of bitter fruit.

I needed Holy Spirit to show me what these deeper, bitter roots were, so I went outside, armed with a trowel, secateurs and gloves, to pray and listen, whilst attacking and taming the expansion in the front garden.

It was hugely therapeutic too!

Some of those roots were monstrous and the spiky nettles and stinging nettles did their best to avoid me pulling them up.

But I won and in the garden, order is restored.

In my heart, I’ve recognised where some of the roots were hiding and have repented of my sinful responses to some early childhood wounds that resurfaced.

Jesus has laid His merciful axe to those roots and I shall no longer need to see the bitter fruit from them in my heart.

Both outside in the garden and in the garden of my heart and life, there will be other roots, other seed producing fruits and flowers, more creepers to tame or dig out.

One thing I have learned, is that nature hates a vacuum. If we want a lovely garden, we have to cultivate lovely plants of our choice.

It is no good just to dig out the weeds.

We have to plant the good things we want, cultivate and nourish the soil, and water the plants.

In my own life, I had to get rid of some very bad habits, that were trashing my garden; I had to get rid of the habits and REPLACE them with good habits, disciplines and good things.

One of the bad habit structures in my life was alcohol. I eradicated this habit over 9 years ago, but I had to replace it with good things. If I stop drinking, but do not replace it with good habits and life-giving activities, I will be worse off then before and will likely return to the drinking, more devastating than before.

Last night I went to AA to share this story of my lesson in the garden.

Holy Spirit is a master gardener of our hearts, if we join Him, putting on our gardening gloves and armed with the trowel and secateurs, He will help us to recognise the ‘weeds’ in our lives, show us what good things to plant in their place and help us to nourish, prune and cause our garden to be bountiful in good fruit.