Gardening the Soul: Weeding the Garden, 5

Removing the Roots

I recently toured a friend's garden that she inherited when she bought the house of an avid gardener. My friend was enchanted by the flowers that marched through her garden from spring to fall. Just days before my tour, she attacked the weeds that were gobbling her garden. In an hour, she had decapitated most of the weeds with a weed-eater. It looked great--temporarily. This neophyte gardener didn't know that most weeds grow lustily from any roots left in the ground. Getting the root is dirty work--that's why I have blackened fingernails all summer long!

The weeds in life must also be uprooted. Not long ago a former high school friend phoned me. Herb [not his true name] explained to me that at the height of an alcohol-induced argument with his father, he had bellowed: "And you bought me right-handed golf clubs when I was a kid!" What did Herb mean? Herb is left-handed. He views the purchase of those right-handed golf clubs as a symbol of his dad's careless concern: "If Dad had truly loved me, he would have bought me left-handed golf clubs." The author of Hebrews warned: See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many." (12:15). A bitter root has been tunneling and spreading in Herb's life for over forty years. It has stolen the nutrients he needed to grow into a healthy human being. It has choked his ability to experience God's love. He lives a lonely, alcohol-dependent life largely because he has not removed that poisonous root.

Which root is easier to remove -- a two-year old child's naughty insistence on throwing his food or a seventeen year-old's haughty refusal to help at home? If parents overlook this sprouting weed: "Oh, but isn't he cute?”, they won't think the mature weed is cute at all: "Just try to make me clean my room!" Now the parents have a lusty weed whose toxic roots have spread throughout this young rebel's life, causing him to be expelled from school, arrested for underage drinking, and kicked off his soccer team. So many mature weeds are growing in the soil of his life that they won't be uprooted without blistered hands. If we wait until the neighbors can see the weeds in our garden, we have greatly inflated our task!