The first time I remember God meeting me in the garden, I was pulling weeds. I had inherited a flower bed from a previous gardener at the parsonage we lived in while Donnie served as Youth Minister in Indianapolis. Someone had thoughtfully and lovingly stretched thick black plastic across the perennial flower bed, carefully cut holes in it to accommodate the desirable plants, and covered the rest of the plastic with rocks to suppress weeds. I'm sure that this had worked, especially at first, to keep weeds out of the bed. But every time someone mowed the grass in the yard, the clippings settled between the stones. It decomposed and turned to soil. Eventually weed seeds blew in, and having the nature of not needing much soil OR any amount of depth to grow, those weeds flourished in their shallow, plastic-bottomed, rocky bed. By the time I became the caregiver of this patch, it had completely been given over to weeds. The ability of the perennials to spread or reseed themselves had been suppressed by the weight of the plastic and stone mulch. The intentions had been loving and methodical, but the long-term result was to strengthen and protect the weeds while the plants were kept weak, strangled, and small.
I feverishly picked off the stones, ripped away the plastic, and started to pull the weeds away from the hostas and other plants I wasn't yet familiar with. I felt like I was liberating them. It was hot, back-breaking work, and I started to resent the previous caregiver on some level. If they had been diligent, I wouldn't be in this mess. Weeds thrive on neglect, and if only the person before me had just kept at it, they could have been kept under control.
That was the first moment I was ever struck with weeds as a metaphor for sin. I was looking at this bed, overrun with ugliness, and the Lord spoke to my heart: "You've been in this position before." This was not the first time I'd experienced the good choked out by the bad. And I had no one to blame but myself.
I'll back up.
Lets start with the idea that weeds are a metaphor for sin. Where does that come from? How about the fact that weeds weren't even an issue on this planet until sin entered the world. I'm going to stop writing right now and read the history of the fall of man in Genesis, so it's fresh on my mind. Maybe you'll want to do the same.
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I just read the account of the fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 and 3, and my heart broke for them all over again. Whatever devastation we experience as a result of the sin of this world, it can't compare to the grief they must have experienced. To know what the world was like before, and to live with the knowledge that it never will be again. To experience perfect unity with their Heavenly Father, and then to yearn for that unattainable closeness for the rest of their lives. It was merciful that they were kicked out of the garden and sentenced to eventual, physical death. Eternal life on this planet was eternal separation from the life God had wanted for them. Let's talk about the before and after in gardening terms.
In chapter 2, God created a perfectly safe, nourishing home for the mother and father of the human race. The trees that grew food for them were "pleasing in appearance". The plants and trees were watered by a mist that rose from the ground and a river that flowed through it. Adam was placed in this perfect home with the task of working the land and watching over it. If there are any gardeners out there reading this, can you imagine the joy of planting and growing delicious and beautiful things before sin entered the world? Every hope and plan we've ever thought for our green spaces would come to fruition without a care. They would actually materialize into what we dreamed that they would!! Those of you who aren't gardeners, I'm getting ahead of myself. But just know, in this world, the gardens that live in our minds, NEVER materialize into reality. At least not without trial, tears, and years of failed attempts and adjusted expectations.
I don't know how long Adam and Eve lived in the sinless world. I don't know how many walks they took with their Father in the cool of the day (Gen 3:8) or how many weeks or years they had invested in designing, planting, and tending gardens that grew as they were intended, to the glory of their loving God. He gave them dominion over every fish, bird, and animal. He gave them "every seed-bearing plant...and every tree whose fruit contains seed. This will be food for you." (Gen 1:28-30) Can you imagine the fun of planting seeds that actually grew where you planted them?! Such abundance and order that there was enough for every creature to share. The nutrients in the soil, the light for photosynthesis, and the water needed to grow was all provided by the Father, in perfect timing and partnership. How familiar were Adam and Eve with this lifestyle before it changed? This was the only way and they only home they knew. My heart breaks even more for them that it does for myself--to have known the sinless world and be the cause of its loss.
Now we come to the moment where everything changed. I spend a lot of time with weeds, so I picture this often. The man and woman are caught off-guard when they hear God taking His daily walk through the garden. For the first time their thoughts are consumed with something other than Him, His love for them, His gift of life and home. They are consumed by shame and hide behind some trees. (Gen 3:8) They are using the very gift He gave them to create a barrier between them. God reveals to them the consequences of their sin--a new level of pain in childbirth, a new struggle against nature just to survive. "The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor....It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground..." (Gen 3:17-19) And in that moment, while the couple looked on in fear and confusion, I imagine the words God was speaking began to come to life. I picture brambles growing up before their eyes, new plants that they've never seen--now potentially poisonous or harmful to the touch. I imagine one of them, still exposed in their nakedness, feeling the sting of an insect bite for the first time, or thorny vines growing up to strangle their favorite fruit trees, the mist rising to reveal dry and cracked earth below...and what was it He said about returning to the ground? They who had no concept of death beyond God's gentle warning, would now live in fear of it.
For the rest of their lives, and for the rest of creation, weeds would be a constant reminder of sin entering the world. There were only beneficial, beautiful, delicious plants before that. Now, every person who works the ground spends infinitely more time with weeds, thistles, and thorns than we do with the beneficial plants we're trying to grow. There is not abundant nutrient soil. Now, if we don't stop them, the weeds fight for and steal from the desirable plants--nutrients that belong on our dinner table! We have to toil for every bite we produce in the garden, and much of that is then robbed by pests, disease, drought, or hail storms.
And just as weeds are a graphic metaphor for sin entering the world, so an unattended garden riddled with weeds in a picture of an unrepentant heart where sin has taken root. Back at home in Indianapolis, a gardener before me had tried to prevent weeds from growing. She had covered the ground in so much plastic and gravel that even the plants she wanted could not survive. And yet the weeds grew over the barriers anyway. There is only one solution for weeds and sin. Digging them out by the root. That's what the Lord said to my heart that day as I started to resent the neglect in my new garden space. There is no shortcut. There is no barrier strong enough. The root must be dug out by the Gardener himself. In the garden, that requires me to spend time there, toiling for whatever small victory I can get over this thorn-infested earth--pulling each weed and replacing it with nutrient-rich soil that will feed my plants instead of stressing them. In my heart, it requires time with the Gardener. Giving Him access to the hidden places, showing me how my sin is stealing from the fruitful life He wants to produce through me. I have to let Him expose my sin to the light, dig it out from the root, and replace it with His nutrient rich Word and Truth.
That was the first time I cried in the garden. I had already experienced the skillful tending of my heart by the Gardener. Years before He had shown me how rebellion and shame were robbing me of the abundant life Jesus had paid for with His blood on the cross. He had walked me gently but unrelentingly through confession and repentance until my life actually started to produce the fruit of craving what was best for me--time with Him in the light of His Word. Now He seemed to be offering me a deeper picture of what He had done, through the use of my own hands in my own patch of soil.
Since that day, my location and the size of my plot of land has changed many times, but I have considered it an overwhelming privilege to work alongside Him, being gently corrected and taught by Him in the garden.
