“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
- Proverbs 4:23
My human has a way of asking questions that aren’t really questions.
He’ll stand on the porch with a coffee cup in one hand, his Bible in the other, stare across the yard and say something like, “How in the world do weeds grow so blamed fast?”
Now, I’m just an old black dog.
I don’t claim to know much about gardening, but I had noticed the same thing.
We’d had one of those good old summertime rains—the kind that pounds the tin roof, fills the ditches, and makes everything smell fresh. Then came the sunshine, the heat, and enough humidity to make an old dog wish he was inside in the air conditioning
Two days later…
There they were.
Weeds…
Weeds around the mailbox.
Weeds beside the fence that separates our yard from the field across the way
Weeds in the flower beds.
Weeds growing right out of cracks in the driveway where I would’ve sworn there wasn’t enough dirt to hide an earthworm.
My human chuckled.
“You ever notice,” he said, “the things you want to grow need watering, tending, and pulling. But weeds don’t need an invitation.”
I tilted my head.
That sounded like one of those lessons that wasn’t really about weeds.
Seems our hearts can be a lot like the cracks in that old driveway.
Leave them alone for very long and the weeds start showing up.
A root of bitterness here.
A patch of worry there.
Some envy, pride and selfishness sneaking in around the edges.
A little unforgiveness finding a crack just big enough to settle into.
Nobody wakes up and plans for those things to grow.
They just do… unless somebody tends the garden.
My human says that’s why we stay close to Jesus every day.
Reading His Word
Talking with Him in prayer
Worshiping
Serving
And spending time with God’s people
We’re not just pulling weeds.
We’re planting something better.
The Holy Spirit grows love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control where weeds used to live.
I’ve watched my human kneel and pull tiny weeds before they ever got big enough to spread. “They’re a whole lot easier to deal with now than later,” he’d say.
I guess sin works the same way.
The longer we ignore it, the deeper it digs in.
The wonderful news is that Jesus doesn’t just point out the weeds.
He lovingly pulls them up by the roots, forgives us, and plants His grace, peace, joy, and truth where they once grew.
Then, day by day, He keeps cultivating our hearts until they begin to look more like His.
I don’t understand everything about gardens.
I’m still convinced holes are meant for digging and sticks are meant for chewing.
But I do know this:
Life grows something in every heart.
So I’d rather stay close to the Gardener with the nail-scarred hands who has never lost a garden He’s entrusted to His Father…
Keep the Faith… Carpe Diem
