Posts Tagged ‘Piety’
At Long Last
Posted in General, God Thoughts, Grace, Piety, Poems, Struggling, Work of Jesus, tagged Enabling, Grace, Piety, Poems, Struggles, Work of Jesus on February 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »
On the drive to church this morning,
So much wickedness in my heart
Desire to follow ever grows
Jesus only, beginning, end
All by grace He has given me
One day my faulty service gone
Weeds
Posted in Gardening, General, Photo, Piety, Random thoughts, Sustaining, tagged Nature, Photos, Piety, Random thoughts, Temptation on July 7, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Let me begin with a few excuses: 1) not much time, 2) more than normal rainfall, 3) injury, and for good measure 4) wasn’t sure it was worth it. My wife had asked me to weed the flower beds in front of the house several times. I must confess that the only thing that got me motivated to actually start was the avoidance of another chore I detest more, scrapping paint. Now that I’ve blown my cover about a few of my procrastinating personality flaws, here is the point I considered while yanking crabgrass leaders out of the soil.
Weeds run deep. They grow fast. Ignoring them makes their removal harder. Weeds can choke the life out of things. Apart from poison that contaminates everything, the only way to prevent weeds is to replace them with desirable plants that leave no room for weeds.
I have another flower patch that has very little weeds in the middle of it. Weeds have no room for roots and very little sunlight. The various kinds of lilies simply grow too close, having produced more bulbs with each passing year. I will not be thinning them because I don’t have to weed that area. English gardens make more sense, with their crowded beds of profusely blooming flowers. Undesirable weeds just can’t take root in this environment.
It is the same way in our lives. It is not enough to root out something unprofitable or wrong in our life. We must replace it with something better, more desirable, healthier, God-pleasing. Otherwise the weeds will return all the faster in the cleared, well-tilled ground we just cleared.
It reminds me of what Jesus said, “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.” (Luke 11:24-26) What Jesus states is in the more extreme, related to demon possession and salvation. But even for those of us who are already saved by His grace, we need God in every area of our lives filling up the void spaces, working righteousness in us, teaching us prudence, kindness, and discipline. Our lives filled with the good things of the Lord are far less likely to be encroached upon by the seedier tendrils of sin and unbelief.
Weeds all gone
Totally gone
Dead azalea, too
A transplanted daylily (not the one in bloom) and a Purple Speedwell
A Gayfeather and White Speedwell with volunteer Cala Lily in between
spreading Purple Verbena
CreatorWorship 