As I approached the garden, I could see where weeds had sprung up; there were not many, but, even so, I could tell that they were there. Just looking at the weeds, they appeared weak and easy to manage, but once I began to tug and pull, I quickly realized that these weeds had thick roots that were very deep, strong, and alive. In fact, their roots were deeper and stronger than some of the desired plants that were growing in the garden. My job that day was to get down to the root of the weeds, in order to completely remove the weed along with its roots.
Pulling weeds is a hard, laborious work, digging up roots, using rough tools, and exerting all my strength and effort often did not get the root free from the ground. There were also times where the root broke and only a part of the weed was released from the garden. These times were disappointing, knowing that my hard work only removed the surface of the weed, leaving its strong root system, which was sure to thrive and quickly grow back.
I remember feeling that it was good and beneficial to do the hard work of ridding the garden of its weeds, but, even so, there remained a biting reality that no matter how hard I worked and how well I uprooted weeds, some weeds were sure to grow back and new weeds were sure to join the garden in due time.
As I reflect on my day of pulling weeds, I recognize a familiar tune between a garden and my daily life. So often, the undesirable parts, “weeds”, of my life, be it my sin or my suffering, seem small or weak on the outside, but prove thick-rooted and deep once pursued further. I might exert all my energy to uprooting deep weeds in my life, only to find new ones pop up or old ones return. I can easily get lost in the task of getting rid of weeds. Weeding – in a garden or in my life – often feels necessary or urgent, but quickly becomes insurmountable if I solely focus my attention on weeding.
Weeding a garden does not sustain or create the glory of a garden. In fact, weeding is only a task of the garden, not to be confused with the key ingredients that actually create and sustain the glory of a garden.
C.S. Lewis speaks of a garden’s glory:
“It (the garden) teems with life. It glows with colour and smells like heaven and puts forward at every hour of a summer day beauties which man could never have created and could not even, on his own resources, have imagined…And when the garden is in its full glory the gardener’s contributions to that glory will still have been in a sense paltry (insignificant) compared with those of nature.”
What Lewis is getting at is that the greater work of the garden is yielded to a force far beyond our contribution. Without sunlight, soil in which life can grow, rain, air, etc., the garden ceases to exist. The garden, like us, is dependent on God to offer far greater care and growth than we can even dream, imagine, or desire. Does that mean that the gardener’s work (pulling weeds, breaking dirt, encouraging here, discouraging there) is unnecessary? No, not at all, as it is the gardener’s work that makes a garden a separate thing from mere wilderness.
However, our work in the garden is our response to what has already been set in motion by the God of the universe. In the beginning, before there was man, and before there was a garden, there was a God who purposefully set things in motion (Genesis 1-2). He purposefully created and now sustains all. We are not creator, nor even sustainer, but are, instead, invited to life-giving intimacy with and dependence on The Creator and The Sustainer and to receive, from Him, life that only He can give.
“Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6
Jesus knows complete intimacy and perfect communion with the Father, and yet He came to earth, in the form of a man, had no sin, yet died a sinner’s death on a cross, and defeated death through His resurrection. Even the weeds behold a glory that is beyond our understanding. Even the weeds are pointing to something, someone far greater at work.
“Let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1-2
The glory of a garden is not in the work of the gardener, but rather in its dependence on a Source far greater and offers far more than we ourselves can provide. So it is with us – we were created dependent on a Source far greater than ourselves; we were made to depend on Him.
