The Rose Bush II
Though I was never much of a gardener, I did know I was going to need more than my bare hands to do this. Rummaging through our garage I found some dollar store gardening gloves. Out to the back yard I go. Immediately, I was overwhelmed by the weed-covered bush. Since I never took time to really look at it before I hadn’t realized the extent of the weeds around, under, and growing over the bush!
Freshly determined to prove my willingness to obey God, I picked a spot and began pulling weeds. There were small green weeds on the ground and long green vines entwined on and around the bush.
I decided to start with the short weeds. Grabbing the first weed, two things became immediately apparent. The first was that my gloves were useless.
These innocent looking weeds were in reality covered with tiny barbs that penetrated right through my flimsy gloves! OUCH! So I made my second trip to the garage in search of an option for better protection for my hands. Thankfully, I found a pair of heavy leather work gloves! Not wanting to make any more trips back and forth to the garage, I also snag an assortment of other gardening tools that might come in handy.
The second surprise with these seemingly innocuous weeds was that they were not small at all! In fact, they were several feet long! The green portion that poked up through the grass and pine straw was only a fraction of the plant itself! Several times I’d grab one and pull and pull until I’d finally find where it was rooted into the ground and then hoick it out. This is only two of the many deceptive weeds I pulled that day!
The one thing I hadn’t grabbed on my last trip was something to put all these weeds in. Since they had sharp spikes and thorns, plastic bags wouldn’t do. Back to the garage I tramped for a third time looking for brown paper bags for the quickly growing pile of weeds. Once found, back to the rose bush I go.
As you can imagine, I’m getting a bit frustrated again. I begin thinking this is silly and wondering again what am I doing out here? That’s when the Holy Spirit started showing me His purpose in what I was doing.
“My child, this is a live-action parable you are in right now. Do you have ears to hear?”
Boy, did that stop me in my tracks…quite literally! I stood in my backyard, paper bags in gloved hands already pouring sweat. “Ummm….yes, Lord?.”
“Look at this bush. Look at the vines and weeds. Don’t just do a task to check a box or you’ll miss it! Look and listen as you free this bush to what I’m trying to show you!”
As I stood there staring at the bush I realized had I not been so eager to do this and get it over with, I would’ve grabbed all I needed on my first trip, rather than make three trips. So, I slowed down and took my time in pulling the weeds. That’s when the Holy Spirit started speaking
“This bush is a picture of our relationship. The weeds you’re pulling are like sin. They look small and innocent, but their roots are long and deep and they are covered in thorns. They are not easily pulled out. But they need to go. They are choking the bush and hiding its beauty.”
“You can pull them bare-handed, but it’ll hurt and cut you.That’s why you got the gloves. Spiritually, you have My truth and love to protect you as you root out sin in your life so that our relationship can flourish. If you try to root out sin without my truth and love, it’s like trying to pull these weeds without gloves.”
That is when it finally hit me that God was doing so much more that day than cleaning up a rose bush….and we were just getting started!