My wife and I live in a subdivision of cottage style homes where our Home Owner’s Association annual dues provides for our lawn care—all except for fertilization and weed control. As a courtesy to our residents, fertilization and weed control is available with a group discount to those residents who voluntarily sign up and pay for it. The vast majority of residents signed up for the program last fall. As the last twelve months have gone by, it has been interesting to note how obvious it has become who did and did not sign up for the program. Why so obvious? Weeds. Most interesting of all has been my across-the-street neighbor, who has diligently watered his lawn during a long dry summer, but has been watering a bumper crop of weeds because he didn’t do any weed control at all.
My neighbor and his lawn reinforce a reality about weeds. What do you have to do to grow them? Absolutely nothing. It is the nature of weeds to grow—especially where they are unwanted. In contrast, what do you have to do to have a beautiful lawn free of weeds? An expenditure of a lot of time, energy, and resources.
As I have reflected on the weeds in my neighbor’s yard, I have come to realize what an accurate picture it paints of what life is like for you and me. All we need to do for weeds to grow in our lives—weeds like pride, selfishness, jealousy, envy, discontent, covetousness, lust, deceit, anger, resentment, bitterness, unforgiveness—is nothing. Life weeds grow naturally in us because of the sin nature we are born with. In contrast, to have a weed free life requires a lot of time, effort, and expenditure of emotional, spiritual, mental, and even physical resources.
A great contributor to the control of weeds in our lives involves how we develop and then use our moral compasses—those inner guides made up of our consciences and the moral standards by which we live. To eradicate and discourage the growth of weeds in our lives, our moral compasses must first be calibrated based on true Truth as revealed by the Word of God, not based on relative truth driven by the whims of society, culture, and/or personal feelings. To be accurate, our moral compasses must be formed out of a new nature, not through the re-working of our old natures. The Bible reflects that truth in 2 Corinthians 5:17 when it says, “Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come” (NASB).
Second, to control the growth of weeds in our lives, as need for guidance and wisdom arises, we must not treat our moral compasses with ignorance. We must be faithful, not only to use them to identify true north so we can then determine the right direction to go, but also to be disciplined to go in that right direction once it is determined. God’s word counsels that truth in James 1:22 when it says, “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves” (NASB).
Weed control…good for your lawn, good for your life.
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