How do we get at the root of our weeds?

Accountability:

None of us the idea of having making ourselves accountable, yet, it is one of the most effective methods of bringing about change. Do a study through scripture and you’ll find that people always found themselves in trouble when they refused to employ accountability structures. None of us is above stumbling. There is only One who is able to keep us on our guard.
Jude 1:24 “ Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy…”
We need strength from the outside. There are many times I don’t have the will or the desire to deal with my weeds. One of the primary steps in making oneself accountable is humility. We know the Proverb “Pride goes before a fall” (16:18), but consider the words of vs :17 The highway of the upright avoids evil; he who guards his way guards his life. One of the primary guards we can place in our life is that of a trusted friend who will speak honestly and directly into our life and help us see things from a different perspective. I’m often too close to ground and need help to get my head above the weeds. Much beneficial change in our life is stalled at the corner of humility.

Confession

First to God. God sees the weeds. He’s looking at the lawn of your life, and there they are, high and deep. Our weeds are first a sin against God. There’s no easy way through this. It is a hard, direct acceptance of the authority of Scripture in our life. (1 John 1:9). See it as God sees it, not as you want or believe you should see it. Remember He is God – you are not.

Second, confession to yourself. The Greek Word confession is often tied with “I”. I admit, I acknowledge, I confess. You confess to yourself the reality and damage of the weeds and accept the responsibility for change. We want to blame and shift responsibility all the time for the weeds in our lives. We want the weeds to pop out painless and easy. However the weeds may have been in place for a long long time, and when you start pulling on them, it hurts. Here’s the other thing I found amazing working in my lawn. Truly, the weed seeds may have been planted by others at a vulnerable time - but if the lawn is going to get weeded, I gotta do it. I was wishing my neighbour would do it. But they got their own weeds to attend to (2 Corinthians 13:5 “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you – unless indeed you fail the test). You know, it never seems to work out well when people try to tell me I’m a weedy person. Or, when I have tried to point to weeds in other peoples lawn. We get massively defensive.

Thirdly, to those impacted and infected by your weeds. We must bring healing and restoration of relationships. (James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The effective prayers of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced fruit)

Timing

The ‘when’ to weed pulling is critical. I had to wait till the soil was soft in order to pull the weeds. In the summer the ground was just too hard and I was just breaking the roots off enabling the weeds to re-grow. It created far more damage to the lawn– but when I waited till the ground was soft, it still created some damage, but when I lifted the moist soil I was able to grab the root and pull it out. I’d let the ground settle back in and see that a round hole was left in the dirt where the root had been. When we start pulling those weeds in our life, holes will be left – it can leave a mark. We need to be gentle and let grace fill the holes in our lives.
As always, there’s a big BUT. Much of the soil’s condition is again depended on me. There are things that I must be doing that soften the soil of my life. Yielding myself to God, prayer, fasting, obedience, forgiveness, filling my heart, mind and mouth with His praises – living out the realities of mercy and grace with those about me. And the most significant soil softener, filling my life with His Truth.

I want the weeds out of my life. I’m tired of their roots drawing the energy and joy out of my life that God intends for me– I’m tired of the shame and disappoint that comes with allowing these weeds to dominate in my life. I need to ACT now and start digging out the roots – but just a last warning…do be careful of the cable line.

Anyway I was just thinking.

Neil