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by Patty Ridener, Louisville KY
When we first give our hearts to Jesus, the garden in our heart is filled with weeds and briars. Jesus goes in and begins to plow all the weeds and briars out of our garden. The weeds are the envy, strife, jealousy, hatred, lying, stealing and all the other sins we have planted there.
After Jesus is finished, our garden is all tilled and smooth, and ready for replanting. But not the bad things; we must replace the garden with good things like love, joy, peace, forgiveness and all the other good things that come from God.
This story is about a girl that before Jesus came into her heart was not happy and felt so empty and void inside. Her garden was full of hatred, envy, lying, stealing, and a lot of other things she had planted through the years. When Jesus came into her garden and began to plow, she felt so loved that she wanted to be pleasing to Him in everything that she did and said. For years she planted only good things in her garden and tried to love everyone and be an example to other people. But one day she looked in her garden and saw a weed growing that she did not like. She tried to deal with it, but failed in trying. So to hide it, she went over and cut the top off the weed so no one would see it. But the thing was still there, the root was still there and one day it would come up again.
As time went by, a lot of things happened that added to that weed, but everytime she saw it growing she would cut the top of it off. But one day she noticed on the other side of the garden another weed was growing, this weed was hatred. Now the first weed had turned to hate, so she went over and cut off the top of the second weed, so no one would see it. While she was trying to deal with hatred, she looked back and the first weed had grown real big. She tried to keep them all cut down, but she couldn't do it by herself. The next thing she knew another weed was growing, this one was unforgiveness. One day she turned around and her garden was full of weeds and briars. The things that God had taken out were back in her garden and she felt like a failure. She wa so ashamed that she felt like she had failed God and everyone else, so she stopped communicating with God, and that made things get even worse. She felt so empty and void inside. There was no joy in her life or peace. Her heart was unhappy and she was making the ones she loved very unhappy.
Then one day Jesus spoke to her heart and began to show her where she had messed up. The first thing He showed her was: you will never kill a weed by cutting off the top, because it will grow back. You must pull the weed out by the roots in order to kill it. When you have a weed growing in your garden you must ask God to pull it out for you, because we can do nothing by ourselves, we must have His help. Second, we must never try to cover things up, because it only gets worse and someday we will have to deal with it.
Jesus began to speak to her heart and she asked Him to plow her garden again and give her another chance to do it right. She looked in her garden and saw Jesus walking there. He spoke to her and said, "Come over here I want to show you something." She walked over and He knelt down and began to pull out some weeds and she looked and there was love. He pulled out some more weeds, and she saw joy and peace. They were always there, but she had them covered up with weeds that she had planted. Jesus had not left her, but she could not see His love for all the weeds growing in her garden. She looked again, and her garden was all plowed and clean. She began to thank the Lord for another chance. She promised the Lord that if she saw any weeds growing in her garden that she would ask Him to pull them out.
Sometimes we look for all the bad things in our heart and we overlook the good. The good is always there but sometimes the bad stands out more than the good. What we need to do is keep the weeds pulled out so only the good things can be seen. But remember we cannot do this on our own. We must have Jesus to help us.
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