Many love to garden. Gardens are wonderful because the produce is fresher and the flowers smell sweeter. Gardens are not without problems, however, mainly in the form of weeds and the multitude of weather conditions that affect the plants.
Now this is not going to be a lesson on how to garden, but a lesson from gardening. Yahweh’s wisdom is so great that He puts it right in front of and all around us. Many times in the Bible farming and the description of nature were used as a lesson for us. This is another such case where we can learn to cultivate the gardens of our lives.
Get Rid of the Weeds
Those who have gardened or farmed know that weeds are a nuisance. They deplete the soil of the nutrients the plant needs. Yahshua illustrated this point in His parable of the sower in Matthew 13:7 when He talked about the seed falling on various types of soil. The passage reads, “Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out.” The thorns or weeds represent the things that destroy us—the seed or plant.
What do some weeds look like in our lives? This answer can be generalized as harmful behaviors, but is much more specific towards each individual. Each person has a certain weakness inherent within, which means the weed can be a different thing for each person, but the effects are just as harmful. A weed can come in the form of entertainment, an insulting remark about someone, intentionally flirting with a married man or woman, or many other things that might seem small at first, but later turn into big problems.
The weeds in our lives are not going to go away. All gardeners know that you can pull up the weeds one week and the next week it looks as if your work was for nothing. Weeds will continue to come since we are still flesh and sinful in nature. Yet, we have the power to control whether we feed the weeds and also have control so that some of the weeds don’t come back. It takes much discipline, though, and we must be constantly vigilant.
It starts by controlling what comes into our minds. What we watch, read, and experience can be either harmful or helpful to our lives. Second, it comes from controlling our actions. We can have complete knowledge of the Bible but if we don’t act our knowledge is worthless. By guarding what goes into our minds and what comes out in our actions, always with a focus on Yahweh, the weeds will become weak and die. As we eliminate the weeds the plant should be fed every day.
The Root of the Problem
What if we have some weeds in our lives, how are we to treat them? When you pull a weed, just yanking from the top will often not destroy the whole weed, especially if the weed has large roots. You have to dig deep and yank out the weed by the roots, otherwise it will grow back again. We can’t play nice with weeds but be totally committed to eradicating them, otherwise they will keep coming back.
Others may see our garden without the weeds as a garden only of produce and beauty, but you know that below the surface is a different story. Isaiah 1:16-17 reads, “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” Remove the weeds.
How do we know what is a weed and what is a vegetable plant? A boy was asked by his mother to pull some weeds in their garden. Their garden included cucumber plants. The boy didn’t know what cucumber plants looked like and pulled up cucumber plants with the weeds. The mother, not understanding why her cucumber plants weren’t surviving, planted cucumbers two more times, but he continued making the same mistake. Needless to say there were no cucumbers that year for the family.
Our culture in its depraved state tells us what it thinks is right and wrong. So much bad media fills our minds that it sometimes gets difficult to distinguish truth from fiction. Yahshua is to be our model in life.
Paul in Ephesians 4:14-15 writes, “As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Messiah.” If you have trouble, look to Yahshua, look to the Bible and the weed will become more easily seen and differentiated from the plant.
Help the Plant Grow
It’s not enough to just pull the weeds of wrong from our lives, but we must fill up our lives with good as well.
An example of this principle is found in Luke 11:24-26, “When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.”
What the man failed to do was fill himself with helpful habits and behaviors. We must replace bad behavior with a good, something that will benefit our lives and those in our lives.
Plants need water to grow. Just as the average person can’t live more than a few days without water, spiritually we can’t live without nourishment from Yahweh. What kind of spiritual nourishment do we need in our lives? One very important type of nourishment that we need is a consistent dose of Scripture reading.
Usually we hardly ever miss a meal during the day because we get hungry and weak, but do we take this same approach with our spiritual lives? In Deuteronomy 8:3, when Moses was addressing Israel, we read, “He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of Yahweh.” Everyday we must feed on Scripture by reading and meditating upon it.
Power of Prayer
Another great dose of spiritual nourish-ment comes from prayer. Prayer is such an important aspect of our spiritual development, and Satan knows it. In Daniel 6, when the commissioners and satraps caused an evil law to be created so that they could destroy Daniel in the lions’ den, what did the law prohibit? It prohibited prayer.
If Satan can cause us to stop com-municating with Yahweh through Yahshua Messiah, then so many things in our lives become disoriented. If we don’t praise Yahweh and look to Him for our blessings, we become arrogant. If we don’t thank Yahweh for all that He has given us, then we become envious of others, complacent, and bitter. If we don’t pray for others’ needs, then we become selfish and only interested in ourselves.
Prayer also can transcend reading of Scripture because prayer can be done anywhere or anytime. It keeps us connected to Yahweh, keeps us humble, keeps us thankful, keeps us unselfish, and so many other things.
Even Yahshua, our Savior and King, found time to pray to Yahweh. If Yahshua, a man whose character was flawless and perfect, found it important to pray, then we too should take time to pray.
Help from Brethren
Lastly, we need good, spiritually oriented people in our lives for our spiritual development. Proverbs 27:17 reads, “Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”
We will become dull in righteous living if our only contact is with people who do not strive to live righteously. Unless our resolve is strong enough, their habits will influence and rub off on us in a negative way.
It is in our human nature to want to belong, to have a connection to people. We need each other so that when we feel weak others can strengthen us, and when others are weak, we can strengthen them.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 says, “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. Furthermore, if two lie together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.”
Satan desires us to sin in strife, jealousy, and lies toward each other because it tears us apart, but in righ-teousness we become stronger together through Yahshua. Even if one is isolated from believers in Yahshua, finding a way to communicate or associate with believers will make a huge difference in a person’s life.
The gardens of our lives require much attention and constant work. If we are not vigilant, the weeds will choke out the good things in our lives, and we will not have enough nutrition to keep the plants thriving and fruitful. Thankfully, we are not alone in this great endeavor; Yahshua is there to guide us through this process. He is a true friend and companion who loves us all, and He will be with us as our lives become cultivated for good.
By: Joel Wirl
