I hate to even admit this, but our backyard is starting to resemble a jungle. The front would too, but sod is a little more forgiving than the field out back. It is probably due to a couple of reasons, but one being we let a friend borrow our gas can, a few weeks ago, and he still has it. And for some reason, the lawn mower just won't crank without gas. Strange, I know. So the reality is, it needs cutting pretty badly. As in the back looks like a postcard perfect picture of a wild meadow, complete with purple weed flowers, bouncy puffballs of dandelions in the breeze and hidden patches of briers. Which is its true roots, being that the one acre bit of land we own on this planet was a cow pasture until they came a few years ago with bulldozers and smoothed out a flat area on the hill, built our house and sodded the front part. It is bad enough that the kids came to me this morning and commented on it. Now my point isn't the fact that our yard in in major need of cutting. But more in the progression to this stage. The first week that we didn't mow it, it really didn't look that different. It gets mowed weekly normally, and it might not have that fresh cut look, but it still looked nice. Week two it is starting to get a little scraggly, but the front still looks fine. Week three it looks like we need to mow it, but it wasn't embarrassing, just more a fact that it could use being cut. Monday will be the start of week four. There is now no mistaking the need for mowing. Seemingly overnight, what seemed just like a little overgrown grass sprouted wild flowers and dandelion blooms. It doesn't take a genius to figure out it hasn't been properly kept up. Though I have to say, that the front still looks pretty good, especially when you compare it to our neighbor's front yard, which is no longer sod, but wild grass and weeds. And you can't see the back unless you go out the back or leave the neighborhood and drive behind our property. But when the kids came and told me today that there were weeds in the yard, it came to me that sin can be like that in our lives. So I told them, that is how sin can be. You slack off and it starts to show up, slowly at first, creeping in, barely rearing it's head...but the more you ignore it, the more it grows. Until one day you wake up and realize your life is in shambles, full of weeds and briers. Sometimes our sin is disguised, maybe like a wildflower, so that we think it looks good, but deep down it is still just a weed or sin. Our yard naturally tries to go back to that state of being a pasture full of wild grasses and weeds. We as humans have a tendency to revert back to our human, sinful nature. It takes constant care...mowing, watering, weeding, fertilizing and cutting out the bad to keep a yard looking nice. And just as the lawn mower can't run without gas, you need refueling too. Like the lawn, your spiritual life takes constant care...watering with God's word, fertilizing and refueling with Bible study, church and Christian fellowship and weeding out harmful thoughts, desires and actions. Are you letting small sins creep in, thinking it doesn't really look that bad, or isn't noticeable? Thinking that you can fix it before it hurts anything or anyone knows? Or do you look at the sins as wildflowers and are blinded to the true nature of them?
So this weekend as we tackle our yard and bring it back under control, think about your spiritual life. Are you busy comparing yours to your neighbors and thinking since theirs looks so bad, yours isn't really that bad? Or do you work at keeping the front sodded and nice and neat while ignoring the less visible back? What areas need mowing? What areas need weeding? What areas needs watering? What areas need fertilizing? What tools are at your disposable that need attention or refueling to work properly?
