Ryanne Molinari

In Iowa, you could watch the grass grow and not be (too) bored. My husband will mow our lawn, and if it rains even a little, the grass will spring up an inch by the following day. The same, unfortunately, is true of weeds.

So.

Many.

Weeds.

As my music work winds down for the season and my free time increases, I find myself procrastinated my yard work. Billy mows the lawn, but I’m in charge of the garden, and I would much rather use this beautiful weather to go on long runs to the ice cream shop. But the weeds are running rampant. Last week, with all the dandelions in bloom, our yard looked like a farm for wishes—romantic, perhaps, but definitely not winning us any points with our neighbors. And my garden boxes are lush with tall, verdant pests.

Tomorrow, I will begin my annual offensive against the weeds. My arms will be red and itchy, my ankles caked with soil, my shoulders a bit sunburnt, and my yard bin overflowing with stems by the end.

But the garden boxes will be clear and ready for seedlings. I’ll do a bit of weeding every day for the rest of the spring and summer, but these will be smaller battles instead of tomorrow’s full-scale war of the weeds. Weeding is tough and unpleasant, but without it, there can’t be any measurable or sustainable fruitfulness. The good Iowa soil will be sapped of its nutrients, and my seedlings will wither.

If I want fresh vegetables and flowers, I’ve got to pull those weeds. Moreover, if I want to keep from becoming the eccentric neighbor with the overgrown swamp for a yard, I’ve got to pull the weeds.

Can you see where I’m going with this?

This is a heavy-handed analogy to be sure, but that does not make it any less true. We cannot really abound in fruitfulness or love our neighbors if we do not do the tough work of weeding.

Unlike yard work, though, weeding out the rottenness in our lives is not a seasonal activity. Our sin is, too often, evergreen—hardier than the houseplants I only ever water when I’m going out of town but that, somehow, are thriving.

When I pull weeds tomorrow with my hands, I’m going to inevitably ponder those that remain in my heart. What neglected sins are strangling me unnoticed, like the slow-growing poison ivy I pried off one of my oaks last fall? Which evils do I let multiply unabated like dandelions, excusing them because they look sweet and fluffy even as they wreak havoc on my relationships?

Spring is the time for planting, but it is also the time for weeding. Let’s lean into it and use it well, trusting that the more determined we are to kill sin, the more fruitful God will make us.

I’ll leave you with this quote from John Owen that’s been rattling around in my brain for some time. I expect it will become a song sooner or later: “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.”

This quote is from Owen’s exposition of Romans 8:13, which declares that Spirit-filled Christians must constantly seek to rid their lives of sin—literally, to put it to death. The Gospel Coalition features this excellent article on John Owen’s approach to killing sin: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/john-owen-killing-sin/.

I’ll leave you with a song recommendation: Sarah Sparks’ “The Gardener.” I often sing the chorus as I work, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.