Fruit from weeds: Insight 1

We went completely organic this past year and I did not do a great job managing that change. One result was a LOT of weeds. That meant a LOT of weeding. 

As usual, God did his Genesis 50:20/Romans 8:28 thing, and turned that to the good by giving us some helpful insights though the weeding process. Those insights were both practical and spiritual. They are the fruit referred to in the title. This and the next several posts will pass those insights on.

Well, just like weeding, we’ve got to start somewhere, so let’s get going:

Insight 1

It is much better to prevent weeds than pull them

Weeds weren’t much of an issue in the past because we used black plastic sheeting to stop the weeds before they started. We  abandoned that practice. Our problem was that we didn’t execute a good alternative (newspaper/cardboard covered w/grass clippings) until the weeds had already gotten established. We beat them back, but it took way too much time away from other things. We would have been much better off preventing those weeds in the first place.

The same thing is true in our individual lives: we are much better off preventing sin than trying to uproot it later.

Perhaps the best scriptural passages on this are Proverbs 5:1-14 and Proverbs 7:6-27. Both use illicit sex as a metaphor for all types of sin.  In Proverbs 5:1-14 the inspired writer advises that we stay out of the area where sexual temptation is likely to be encountered. Proverbs 7:6-27 describes the consequences of disregarding that advice.  The point is clear: avoid things that give sin the chance to get going in the first place.

Back to gardening, how do we do that with weeds? Check out the materials here,  here, and here (great video).