Laura Henry was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies and a Masters of Education in Counseling and Human Development. Laura and her husband, Christian, have been in ministry for 7 years. They both serve at Liberty Live Church in Hampton, VA. Christian is the Young Adult Pastor while Laura works part-time as the Elementary Curriculum Coordinator and serves on the Worship Ministry at Liberty. Laura and Christian have a three-year old daughter and a baby boy.
I marched myself out to my front yard to finally weed my flower beds. I had walked by them in disgust for the last several weeks and pretended not to see the weeds absolutely taking over. I’m not a huge fan of pulling weeds or pruning back my flowers. However, I’m always thankful when it’s done and the landscaping looks beautiful again.
In no time, the weeds had taken over; they were climbing over my plants, all tangled up in one another. But, like every time I weed my flower beds, the Lord spoke to me a very convicting truth: If you were consistent enough to weed your flower beds daily, it wouldn’t be as long, dreaded and painful of a process. While the convicting truth was physically applicable to my flower beds, I knew God wanted me to apply it to my spiritual life too.
Physically speaking, weeding can be a long and painful process. I dread it every time. After nearly an hour of sweating, dirty fingernails, mulch pieces indenting my kneecaps and squatting down while my quads screamed for relief, I finally made a deal with myself that I would be more consistent.
Spiritually speaking, my life sometimes looks like my flower beds, overtaken with weeds. The beautiful parts of my life would be much easier to see if I removed all the clutter around them.
Psalm 139:23-24 is a dangerous thing to pray: “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.” I have started to pray this very Scripture, asking God to point out the weeds in my life. I do my best to make an intentional effort to remove them. But typically, by the time I get around to it, it’s quite overwhelming.
Then it hit me. Removing weeds in our lives, whether physical or spiritual, must become a daily habit. We don’t just want God to search and know our lives and point out the weeds that need to be pulled, we need to be obedient to pull them daily, not just once a week, or once a month, or only in the mornings, or only before mealtime.
I want to encourage you. Weeding our lives won’t be nearly as long, dreaded or painful of a process if we make it a daily habit, instead of a “spring cleaning” once a year. Pulling one or two weeds each day is much less overwhelming.
Whether it is my need for control, my anger, materialism, my addiction to social media, the tv shows that aren’t profitable, the overeating, the complaining, judging others, comparison, harboring bitterness towards others, etc., I need to ask the Lord daily to point out the weeds. Then, I need to make the intentional effort to walk outside, pull it out of the ground and set it at Jesus’ feet. Only then, can the Holy Spirit living within me accept the special invitation to take up that space. Friend, don’t wait for spring cleaning. Start today.
