It's a matter of the heart!

When you spend your day rootin’ weeds out of your garden, there’s lots of time to just think.  I don’t have a real theme or even much of an idea what all we’ll talk about this evening, but we’ll start out with a philosophical look at weeds and how they resemble evil trying to penetrate our hearts. 

When I walked into my garden this morning there were weeds everywhere!  Growing between rocks, rooting through rocks, twining around other plants, growing so close to desirable plants that they couldn’t be pulled without damaging or sacrificing the other plant.  I even had a grass that the seed had landed in the cut top of an onion set that rooted and grew, attaching itself to the onion set so perfectly that they looked like one plant!  It had been a couple weeks since I’d really done much more than water the things that need water and go on to something else that seemed more important.    My garden looked a lot like my heart because I hadn’t been paying attention to the regular maintenance it needs either.  Satan has been busy keeping us occupied and distracted so there just didn’t seem to be time for our regular devotions, my personal quiet time and even our prayer life had waned.  

A typical stack of phones to be charged on
Tuesdays and Fridays!

The result looked a lot looked a lot like my garden this morning, the weeds of pride, impatience, anger, frustration, envy and a multitude of other things had rooted deep and twined all around making a pretty big mess of things.   I had allowed myself to try to carry the whole load alone, and had become this angry, short tempered person that could be very content locked up in his house all day!If one more person had asked me to charge their cell phone…..well I just don’t know what I’d do but I know I wouldn’t be very nice about it. 

I had intended to write this last week and if I had, it would be entirely different.  In the mean time, satan has really come after us.  We are involved with a young girl that is struggling with an evil spirit, and that seems to be at the root of it.  It’s been a daily battle with that, where we seem to be losing ground to the enemy.  We hadn’t been off the mountain for almost a month and the isolation was beginning to close in around us.  Looking forward, there was relief in sight because friends had loaned us a car and we headed off for a couple days to celebrate our 33^rd anniversary. 

Visited the 'Apparant Project'

 We had a great time exploring the city, 

Lunch at 'Delicious Burger'

enjoying the food 

and soaking in the beautiful blue Caribbean. God has truly blessed me with an incredible partner and it was sweet to get away and be reminded that we really do live on a tropical island! 

We returned early Sunday morning for church and the graduation celebration for Every Child School. It was a good time, but refreshed as I was the monster of pride and anger didn’t go away easily.  I could put on my happy face for the people, but inside the battle was beginning again.  Monday was a typical busy day with kids helping me build a fence around the property wanting to use the tools, asking questions and making comments I didn’t understand.  I knew this was something personal I was going to have to deal with, just me and God!  I’m writing this in first person but Cheryl and I were both feeling the attack. Tuesday morning confirmations started coming that is was a personal sanctification issue.  Something He wanted to change in me.  First thing in the morning I got an email from a brother who shared a dream he had with me in it, displaying how pride and anger get in the way of ministry and evangelism.  I’ve been studying I Peter and the verse that stood out was 5:5-7

 ‘Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.’

As I was meditating on that thought, Cheryl was catching up on some mail and got 3 references to Isaiah 58:10 - 

 ‘ if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.‘ 

The day turned out to be unusually quiet, just me, the weeds and my thoughts.  As I chopped and dug, there was some serious weeding going on in my heart!  I wish I could testify that my heart was as clean as my garden by the end of the day, but some behaviors have been identified and we have a new awareness of getting our eyes off ourselves.  I will confess that some of the weeds in my heart were rooted deep and allowing them to be yanked out didn’t feel real good.   But that work has been done, now it’s up to me to allow the scars to heal and keep them from resprouting.  Armed with a smile on my face, a song in my heart and a renewed attitude of prayer I’m ready to re-engage the battle.  Sorry to dump on y’all, but I needed to get that off my chest.  We’ll be back soon with more pics and hopefully a more upbeat message.  God bless you all for your prayers and support.