I’ve been spending a lot of time in my garden this year; a lot of time spent pulling weeds and tending plants. It has gotten me thinking about spiritual fruits and sins in our lives.

Sin often starts out so very small. Sometimes it even seems innocent, or perhaps even something that will produce what we want in the gardens of our lives.

They may continue to seem innocent, perhaps even beautiful. We may choose to pamper those tiny sins, or even pretend they don’t exist, not realizing how quickly and deeply they grow within us.

Those creeping little hatreds, prides, selfishnesses, soon begin to overcome the gardens of our lives and hearts, and we may not notice.

They begin producing fruits in our daily lives. Perhaps it seems beautiful to us at the time.

Their roots sink deeply into our every thought and action.

But at some point we begin to notice how that fruit is no longer beautiful.  It has become something horrific, painful, and hurtful to those around us.

We finally see how it is choking out the good fruits in our lives, the ones we want to grow.

Ridding ourselves of these sins is not easy. It hurts. It requires effort. Lots of effort. Daily tending to the garden, daily pulling out those weeds in our lives and removing them.

But only after putting in the effort and pulling out those weeds, can the fruits of the Spirit be produced in our hearts. We are to grow in them daily, so we must tend to them  daily.

These are the thoughts that wander through my mind as I work in my garden. God is so good.

This particular weed is known to me as a goathead plant. They spiderweb across the ground, branching out and spreading their tentacles to steal every drop of moisture. Then they produce these sharp, spiney seeds that stab and stick into anything that passes and when they fall they reproduce their little horrors everywhere.  They must be eradicated for my garden to be fruitful, just as the sins of my heart must be eradicated through God’s grace so that I can produce spiritual fruit in Him.