Life gets in the way. Good intentions don’t always lead to good, godly practices. The things we ideally should be doing don’t get done and we cultivate weeds and not valuable plants. Busyness is not a mark of importance.

Weeds have been dominating my garden lately. I have all kinds of beautiful plants I would like to see flourish, yet the things that are most successful are the weeds. You don’t need to put in any effort for weeds to grow. They just happen. And if you don’t do anything about them, the garden will become dominated by weeds. It takes significant effort to pull weeds out, to spray them, or to mulch to try to slow them down.

This has made me think about the realities of the Christian life. Living a life that trusts Jesus and honours Him requires effort. Yes, the Spirit motivates us and points us to a life of holiness, that is true. But we need to plan and to do things. It is far easier to drift through life like so many do and not think about what we are doing.

Jesus spoke about the wide and narrow paths. Going down the wide path was both easy and popular, but it ended in destruction. While going down the narrow path was complicated and required effort, but it ended in life. Living in the kingdom of God requires effort and cost from us.

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