Weeds

Insight from Dory at Wittenburg Gate: The Weeds in My Garden:

"The proper handling of that sin is in many ways analogous to the proper handling of weeds.

You must mind the roots. A careless gardener might tear away the green part of the weeds, leaving the roots beneath the soil, out of view. The garden may look better--at least for a little while--but the root is there ready to flourish again on another day.

If you don't weed often, the work is much harder. A tender dandelion is easy enough to pull from the soil. After only a week or so, however, its tap root has grown down several inches and extracting it becomes very difficult. Unattended sins become habits, our consciences become numb to them and extracting them from our lives becomes more difficult in time.
Weeds can crowd out the good things. Weeds rob resources, like nutrients and water from the good plants. They block out the sun.

Weeds beget weeds. Allow one dandelion to go to seed, and you now have hundreds of them. We have this wild feverfew growing in our flower beds. The roots spread out and one little plant soon has little children popping up around it in every direction. There is an old saying about the tangled web of deception that results from one little lie. So it is. Sins draw us in to other sins and sin begets sins. Bitterness begets hatred. Covetousness begets theft. Lust begets adultery. Then we lie to cover our sins. Then we lie to cover our lies.

Saying weeds aren't weeds doesn't make it so . . . I once decided that I loved the violets so much that when they found their way into the flower beds, I would let them stay there, too. Big mistake. It didn't take long for them to begin crowding out the other plants. Calling sins something other than sin doesn't erase their power to overwhelm and corrupt us."

Proverbs 28:13 Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

Psalm 139: 23, 24 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!