How Your Flaws and Failures Point You toward Fresh Hope

I hope you enjoy spring as much as I do. Fragrant blossoms, verdant countryside, melodious birdsong…everywhere, nature shouts of new hope and fresh beginnings.
 

 
So what’s not to like about spring — besides allergies, I mean? I’ll tell you what’s not to like.
 
Weeds.
 
Along with the fresh blooms, green shoots, and soft new grass of spring, the nemesis of the suburban property owner proliferates with evil tenacity.
 
Why is it that weeds seem to spread so much faster than the stuff you want to have growing? Not only that, they thrive without water or tending of any kind. It’s inspired me to come up with a new slogan:
 
Weeds happen.
 
On the other hand, manicured lawns, pretty flowerbeds, and nutritious vegetable gardens don’t just happen. They require intentionality, effort, and willingness.
 
Maintenance is ongoing, and if it slips, the result is quickly evident.
 
So I’m looking out the window at my backyard the other day, and I am struck by a parallel:
 
My heart is much like my yard. The nasty stuff springs up easily, without any effort on my part.
 
But the good stuff? Not so much.
 
Here’s what I want to have growing in the garden of my heart:
 

“…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, self-control…” — Galatians 5:22

 
And it doesn’t come naturally, like the weeds do. That’s why I am so grateful for the presence of the Master Gardener in my life.
 
The Master is very wise about gardens. He knows when to plant, when to water, when to feed. He knows how to prune for greater fruitfulness.
 
He even knows how to pull weeds out by the roots so they don’t take over.
 
He knows where we have been wounded in our past, and where the festering pain keeps sending up fresh shoots of bitterness. He is a healer.
 
The Master can give a heart such a radical do-over that its landscape is permanently altered.
 

 
A few years ago, our city officials decided that a new gas line was needed in our area — and it had to go through our yard. This meant the maintenance crew had to dig a deep ditch to lay the line, and then fill the dirt back in.
 
In the remove-and-replace process, once the soil went back in, the city hired a local landscaper to replace some bushes and hydro-seed the yard.
 
Here’s the irony: Back when we purchased our property, the house had been empty for a year, and the lawn had not been watered.
 
A big chunk of the lawn that the city replaced had been little more than a dried-out patch of goats heads.
 
As I’m surveying the fresh, soft, green grass pop up where once I couldn’t even walk barefoot, I heard God say,
 

I have hydro-seeded your life. There are areas where you have struggled and strained, yet for all your hard labor, you haven’t seen fruitfulness — but I have brought new life in a moment, by my power.

 
Wow! Talk about hope. It’s not about me trying harder. I’m not left to my own devices, slaving and striving to manage my human heart.
 
We just need to let the Master Gardener bring transformation as we obey him. He is the one who makes beautiful things come out of our lives.
 
So let him deal with the weeds, and rejoice in the fresh hope he offers you.
 
When it comes to your heart, he’s got this.
 
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