The Tomatoes

This morning began with “Operation: Free the Tomatoes.” I procrastinated weeding our small garden for long enough, and it was suddenly more weeds than tomatoes. I glanced at it last week and grabbed a few easy pieces of grass I could snatch up without gloves. Today though, I knew I had to really get to work. I suited up and immediately knew I had a problem. I asked my son to help me identify the weeds because everything looked green to me. He separated the tomato vines from the weeds and showed me how even though they were tangled up, they were easy to divide and pull up. I got a quick warning from him to be careful with what I was pulling up so I did not kill the tomatoes before he took off on his four-wheeler. I put on my gloves and got to work. I squatted down eye level with the plants to figure out what needed to stay and what needed to go. The weeds seemed to have an agenda. They wanted to blend in and take over. They had succeeded. Luckily, there were only two or three tomatoes lost in the battle when I plunged in and started pulling. They ended up on the ground more flat than round. When I finished, the garden looked small and sparse. It was kind of puny. It did not look full anymore; however, anyone with even the slightest green thumb knows that nearly naked and bare is better than crowded and cluttered with weeds. When I was down on my hands and knees right in the middle of the mess, I drew a line like a dot to dot in my mind from weeds to sin. I had seen the analogy before in my head many times, but it was even clearer than before. First of all, temptation in life that leads to sin is not clearly marked SIN and it does not have a sign that flashes in bright colors DANGER. (The weeds were not marked weeds.) Sin looks okay at first. It blends in with what we are already accustomed to. It does not present itself as sin, but as an adventure, a way out, fun, or even just way too much of a good thing. Secondly, when one wrong turn grows into more and eventually leads to devastating consequences, I do not think anyone ever said that they knowingly signed up for it. It starts small and grows, just like the weeds in the garden. Once it starts growing and the conditions are right, it can get out of control fast. Next, I had to look really closely to even decipher what was a good from bad. In fact, someone else had to help me. I was forced to physically get in the middle of the garden and separate the green mass with my gloves all the way down to the root. When we find ourselves in a mess, that is what we have to do. We must identify the root cause because unconfessed sin will not just go away. It will stay, remain, and grow. Lastly, the tomatoes that got crushed were damaged beyond repair. I tossed them over the fence. What a contrast that is to a life in Christ because when Jesus lives in our heart, we are never beyond repair. Even though we will have consequences for our sin, there is always forgiveness. 1 John 1:9 says “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Just like I cleaned out the garden and freed up the tomatoes to thrive, maybe this is a good week for us to clean up our lives and throw out some sin. We can thrive too and be free because Jesus forgives.