I’ve been wanting to write this for a while now. I had this
analogy in my head, where yard work parallels our righteous progression. I
thought I’d post it here, just for funsies.
Every year, I have the “man vs. nature” classic struggle, of
trying to keep up with my yard and its many weeds. There are times that I think
I should just give up, and just let the weeds take over. Especially grass-it’s
great when it grows, except when it grows where I don’t want it to grow!
But I realized, no matter how bad it gets -how riddled with
sin we are, or how many sins of omission we commit (not reading scriptures,
etc.), it is still worth fighting the good fight. Paul Harvey said, “Someday I
hope to enjoy enough of what the world calls success so that someone will ask
me, ‘What’s the secret of it?’ I shall say simply this: ‘I get up when I fall
down.’”
There may be weed upon weed in my flower beds, but if I can
pull just one, that’s one that I have overcome. All it takes is that first
step. And usually, once I take that first step, no matter how overwhelming or
daunting it may feel to get started, it leads to pulling more weeds, and more
and more, until I can see the beauty lying beneath, until the bed is clean of
the unwanted weeds. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said, "Let us not give
up. Let us be true to our covenants. Let us never lose sight of our Advocate
and Redeemer as we walk toward Him, one imperfect step after another."
I also realized that if I get to the weeds when they are
small, the easier they are to pull up. If I let them go, wishing they will just
go away on their own, they get worse (like grass, or those climbing weeds). They
will create a deeper, stronger root. And then the weeds choke out the good
things I may have in my garden.
I also realized that there will never be the “perfect” time
to start pulling weeds. The day is either too hot, or too cold, or too windy,
or too busy. I can always find an excuse to NOT start. But, as they say, there
is no time like the present. If I don’t get to it now, then when?
Is my yard perfect? Certainly not. It never will be. But
it’s something that I can keep working on, until my weaknesses become my strengths.
But that won’t happen until I put forth the effort-no matter how hard it may
seem or how hard it may actually turn out to be. “I am the master of my fate, I
am the captain of my soul.”
