Know Your Enemy

Welcome to deep thoughts by RL! :) So we have a problem with our lawn. Let me start by saying that it has been HOT in Houston this summer and we haven't had much rain. Our subdivision was on water rationing for awhile plus we were on vacation for almost 2 weeks. Needless to say, our lawn suffered due to those conditions but then we started noticing that no matter how much we tried to water the grass it wasn't getting better. We decided to call TruGreen chemlawn and get a free estimate. Their diagnosis was that we have an insect called the chinchbug and it is killing our lawn. They declared our lawn an emergency situation - terrific news!(do you hear my sarcasm) So we decided to let TruGreen aerate the lawn and do 4 applications to get us back on track. In order to enhance the process, I decided to rake the dead grass and attempt to pull weeds that had begun to grow in the lawn.

I worked really hard about a week and a half ago raking and pulling weeds. I don't want the weeds to be taking the nutrients from the new grass that will hopefully grow. I talked to my mom, a garden expert with a beautiful lawn, and described my weed. I thought I was pulling up crabgrass. I got the majority of the weeds pulled and was quite proud of myself(pride comes before the fall). Today I look outside and noticed MORE WEEDS!! I wanted to get them pulled before the yard was mowed. At first I entertained the idea of just letting the mower cut the weeds down, but that would only make the lawn LOOK more pleasing not solve the problem. In that statement lies a wealth of spiritual applications that I thought I should share.

It would be so much easier to allow the mower to "eliminate" my problem, but in reality it would be doing nothing. You have to go straight to the root! Sometimes I know it is best to go to the root of the problem, but that takes time and can be painful and so I just "mow" over them. Of course we all know what happens the weeds just spring up again, because they weren't pulled. Sin is the same way. We can't just sweep it under the rug, we have to deal with it right then and go to the root of the problem. During my tedious weeding, I noticed that sometimes the weeds were growing in the good grass and I had to carefully spread apart the grass in order to get to the weed. Sin can be masked as many things and you have to make distinctions in order to get rid of the problem at hand - be a sin surgeon. In the midst of my yard working and spiritual lessons, I realized that I wasn't confident that I knew exactly what type of weed I was pulling. So I took pictures of the weed and emailed my mom. Come to find out I thought I was pulling crabgrass, when actually I was pulling nutsedge. Of course in doing my research, I found out that I also have crabgrass issues - lucky me (more sarcasm).

My final spiritual lesson for the day is to know your enemy. Dig deep and know what sin you are fighting and how you can overcome it. If you are a Believer, then you are victorious in Christ and He will help if you ask. Sin is a constant minute by minute battle just like keeping a yard. It takes hard work and sometimes you have to get your hands dirty, but it is worth it!