For those of you who have been reading my blog for a while you may recall me
mentioning my knockout rose bushes. I have seven of them and most of them
surpass ten feet in height. They are all gathered together in a menacing
conglomeration in one corner of my lawn, waiting for battle. You may be
surprised that I would use such a description to describe something as
delicate as a rose, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder😊. Although on
occasion I have enjoyed their beauty when they are in bloom, for the most
part they have been a daunting, mocking, challenging nemesis that calls to
me every day, “just try and tame us!”, and try I have. I have included a
Each Spring I set out with a chain saw and score one for the home team
(after all, it is my home, although sometimes I think it is theirs). I saw
them down to a reasonable height and width and clear about a hundred
branches from my property (the trash guys “love” me for several weeks).
Then, to my amazement, by June, they are back up over ten feet high and four
This year however my rose bushes decided to pull out the big guns for the
battle against me. They carefully thought out and planned their attack (I am
sure they have brains). The introduced ginormous weeds that grow up right
through the center of them and exceed their height. You may think that their
approach is foolish since the weeds have the prospect of killing them, but
they don’t care! They just want to make my life miserable! So this past week
I went out to them to try and get at the root of the weeds. I knew that I
was somehow going to have to penetrate their defenses by crawling in through
any small opening I could find into the center of the rose-bed. While I
succeeded in getting in, I could only navigate within a two foot by two foot
space because of the growth of the bushes, and I certainly could not get at
the root of the weeds. So what was I left with? Clippers and an attack on
the weeds from outside of the bushes. I managed to get at most of them so
that the bushes look marginally acceptable but I definitely did not get at
the root of the problem. I left the whole affair with cuts and scrapes and a
general sense of defeat, as well as thoughts of ripping all of them out next
I also left with a lot of thoughts about God’s work in our life. While I
was doing the job I was thinking of our sins as the weeds. We give birth to
them and nurture them even though they can kill us. They keep outsiders far
away from us and cause separation from God and yet we have a tendency to
hold on to them. On our good days we may try to free ourselves from them but
our best efforts only allow us to cut them from above, while leaving the
root deeply imbedded in the ground. We size up the situation, plan another
form of attack, and walk away frustrated when our efforts produce the same
superficial victory. Sometimes we let those weeds (sins) hang around in our
lives for years, sucking the life right out of us and scratching and
scarring those around us before we really determine to go for the root. This
is when we hopefully ask God to help us. Perhaps by this time we have come
to recognize that we are not going to win the battle on our own and that we
must ask God alone to go deep into our hearts and rip out the sin. In our
despair we cry out through prayer and ask Him to bless our efforts to flee
or resist, or change and we find that He is faithful for His name’s sake,
His promises, and because He loves us and is glorified by our desire to be
Perhaps you have some “weeds” in your life that are choking the beauty that
God wants revealed through you. We are always going to have some weeds
because we will not be free of sin this side of heaven, but God wants to get
at those deep-rooted sins that cause so many problems and cause our light
for Him to fade. Have you been attacking your sins from atop? Are you ready
to ask God to get at the root so you can shine for Him? Have you had enough
15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in
me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear
fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean
because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine,
neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the
branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit,
For Him,