Pulling Weeds

Devotion for the week...

I use a paper planner to keep track of all the things that need to get done. It's my daily to-do list, my meal planner, my appointment diary, and my deadline tracker. I'd be lost without it! One day last week I wrote 'weed flower bed' in the box for one day, followed by 'devotion writing' right below it and the two tasks immediately connected in my mind for today's devotion. That's how most of these devotions come about; God shows me the craziest, most random connections between ordinary things and His word, and I just follow His leading.

Because Newfoundland is so far north, we're still in the very early stages of spring. Leaves aren't open yet on the trees and the plants in my flower bed are growing, but they're barely more than shoots yet. The weeds, though, are coming up like crazy! I spent a little over an hour last Monday pulling weeds from half of the bed, but didn't have time to finish the second half. The difference is amazing. On the left side, you can clearly see the daylilies, black-eyed Susans and Asiatic lilies coming up. On the right hand side, they're hidden amongst the bits of grass, clover, and who knows what else that are coming up around them.

You might think I'm going to the parable of the farmer sowing seeds, but that's not the connection God showed me. Instead, He pointed me to Philippians 2:14-15, which says, "Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you." In my mind, I saw our complaints as the weeds hiding all the good things in our lives.

I'm putting extra emphasis on our complaints, because I know just how often complaining rears its ugly head in my own life. The complaints may not always get spoken out loud, but they sure do run on repeat in my mind. Do you have that problem, too?

It doesn't matter how many good things are in my life, or how wonderful they are, the little things that bug me seem to be the things that take up the most space in my head. They crowd out thoughts of all those good things, putting my focus on the negative rather than the positive. They're weeds, for sure, and they need to go!

There's no avoiding minor irritations and frustrations, but we don't need to give them extra attention and make them grow even bigger. I saw a meme once that said, "Life may give you a cactus, but you don't have to sit on it." It made me laugh out loud, but the message hit home. Complaining about the irritations of life is like sitting on the cactus; it only makes the situation worse.

Pulling weeds from a garden is a constant chore. Pulling the weeds of complaints will be, too. So how do we do it? The first step is being aware of the complaints when they pop up. Then we'll have to consciously choose to put the complaint out of our minds. Easier said than done, I know, but the effort will be worth it. 

It may help to replace the complaint with a different thought, in which case Philippians 4:9 has plenty of suggestions: "Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise." Those are thoughts worth cultivating!