Yard Work/Soul Work

I hate yard work. There are days I pray it will rain so that I don't have to do yard work. Of course, the irony is that the rain just causes things to grow more so there is MORE yard work to do. I hate the first mowing of the year...because then you're committed. Every week: mow, mow, mow again. It's a never-ending cycle.

And just mowing wouldn't be so bad, I suppose, but there are all these flower beds we have around our home. Almost completely encircling the house are flower beds with various degrees of successful growing in them. Some of the bushes and such are flourishing, and some are just gasping out one more leaf. But all of them have one thing in common: the weeds always grow better than the plants do. Pull all the weeds out, and the next day there are more. They are relentless, and they seem to believe that these are their flower beds, not mine.

I hate yard work. It's hard, and dirty, and messy, and time consuming. But it needs to be done. And not just because the city will come knocking on my door if I don't do it. It needs to be done so that the place we live doesn't fall apart.

And every time I go to pull weeds, I'm reminded of how relentless they are, but I'm also reminded of how much weeds are like the sin in our lives. We need soul work to get rid of the weeds.

I hate soul work. It's hard, and messy, and time consuming. Wouldn't it be nice if, when Jesus saves us from our sin, he took away our ability to ever wander away from him, to ever sin again? Wouldn't it be nice if we just moved, at that point, to a place where there is no more temptation, no more places to stumble, no more risk?

But we don't. Even when we come to Jesus, when we accept his salvation, we still live in this world. We're still surrounded by things that tempt, that threaten to trip us up, things that grow in our lives like weeds, threatening to choke out the life we've found. Without attention to those things—daily soul work—we can quickly find our lives overrun by spiritual weeds.

That's why we need to be praying and studying Scripture and spending time with Jesus daily...because the weeds grow daily. The temptation surrounds daily. There are things that confront us each day that threaten the health of our soul. It'd be easy to skip. I could easily go back to bed in the mornings. But instead, I've made it a habit to read, study and pray before I do anything else in the day. I need the soul work those things provide. I need to hear from Jesus before I start my day. I'm thankful for the soul work he does during that time.

But I still hate yard work.