As is my pattern now that school is finished, my syllabi for next fall are handed in, and the structured rhythm of our days has gone out the window, I am relentlessly hyper-focused. This is not news to my husband or those who know me well.

This season’s focus/obsession is my garden. Most particularly, the weeds. I don’t have more weeds than other people. They’re not out of hand or infringing on others.

But I hates them.

I spend a lot of time thinking about them. Researching mulches and ground covers, wondering if I can use rhubarb leaves to cover open spaces and smother the portulaca. It’s worth a try, right?

And I feel pressure to be out there all the time. Pressure to have a completely weed-free existence. Pressure that crawls up within me to prove that I have my stuff together.

It’s funny, isn’t it, how the things that we love can become burdens when we focus on the weeds?.

As I was out in the garden today my focus was on the weeds. On the bad things that I didn’t want there and wished I could be rid of.

And I was struck by the parallel to our spiritual lives. How my approach to the garden directly reflects my current approach to my spiritual life.

All I’m seeing are the weeds.

The ways that I wish I were more disciplined, the wastes of time, the lack of patience, the frustrations and the failures. How I can’t seem to be still long enough to hear God well, which must really bug him, right?

Inhale

Often when I can’t seem to hear God clearly he uses different strategies to get my attention. When I can’t seem to sit still, he speaks to me in movement. When I feel trapped inside, he speaks to me through his creation, as he did this morning.

As I was on my knees in the garden (and don’t think that posture was lost on me), I heard him say so clearly, “You’re focussing on the weeds and completely missing the fruit.”

I paused, on my knees, and looked around me. Looked at the plants that were growing, blossoming, straight and tall, reaching upwards. And all I could see were the weeds.

Why do the weeds bug me so much? Is it because of what they will do to the plants or because of what people will think if my garden is less than perfect?

There are times in my life when rather than looking at the product of what Christ is doing within me, I seek the manicured perfection that hides the weeds inside.

As long as people can’t see my weeds, I’ll be fine.

Weeds are nothing to be ashamed of. Weeds do and will grow in all of our lives. Ways we fall short of our expectations, of others’ expectations, of the people God knows we can be. Sins we return back to, ways we cope instead of turning to God.

We all have weeds.

But God is the ultimate gardener. He’s the one who prunes, tends, and stakes a firm foundation around us when we overreach ourselves.

And he weeds, yes. But gently, lovingly, and not with the frantic shame that sometimes overtakes me.

When I try to do my own weeding, relying on my own strength and determination to be better, to do better, I fall short. Of course I do. Because if I could have fixed my imperfections with will and grit, surely I would have done so by now.

Weeds don’t make me weak. They’re part of the work that Christ by his Spirit does within me. Being God in my life, doing the work in me and through me that I can’t do myself.

It’s submitting to my own growth process and seeing how God’s growing work in me overshadows the creeping vines of my own insecurities, sins, and imperfections.

Because doing my own spiritual weeding steals my peace. It throws me into a place of leaning on my own understanding rather than God’s magnificent overseeing.

Both places start from a place of being on my knees. But then, it’s about where my eyes are focused. Are they pointed downward to what I wish was gone, what I see is wrong in my life? Or are they pointed straight ahead to the growth within me and upward to the source of my peace?

I need to release those choking things in my life to God. To expose them to light and then rely on his grace, mercy, and transforming power to see me through.

Then the growth will come, the weeds will lose their clinging power, and I will see things around me and within me, differently.

The weeds might still be there, and perfection isn’t for me this side of heaven, but my focus is different. I rely on God to tend my soul and trust him to show me both my growth and the weeds. It’s work and willingness and peace.

And it’s perfect.