Winter Berries and the Sin-Plant

I spent a couple of hours yesterday trying to finish getting my yard winterized. I've taken the role over from Meli--who loves the change!--and every time I spent a few minutes out in the garden I come away with a spiritual picture or analogy. This time was no different...

First of though, a cute story. My two oldest kids Emmie (age 5) and A.J. (age 4) were out there helping me cut down Virginia Creeper (or, the Sin-Plant...more to come). They saw the berries on the vines and decided to pull them off for the birds to eat as they migrate south. They grabbed them, looked around for birds, and after not seeing any, starting yelling, "Biiiiiiiiiirds! Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiirds! Get down here, we have winter berries for you! Come on birds.....biiiiiiiiiiirds!" This brought a neighbor lady out and we had a great laugh over Emmie and A.J. and their winter berries.

Okay....back to the analogy. As I'm hacking away at the virginia creeper, I tug and cut and tug and cut and soon I see that some these small vines are so tangled around and around the metal fencing and itself that it's not coming off without some serious muscle on my part. So, I hacked even more, and eventually I pulled a small vine up from UNDER THE GROUND and it brought with it a large root. A baseball bat-sized root.

I thought that it was going to be hopeless to get out....Until I gave it a simple tug. Out it popped! This picture of how sin entangles itself and winds around me at times. And how deceptively wound up in sin I am. See, the plant didn't look that bad when I looked at it from my back porch...and when I got to the base of it, and the root looked all big and bag and scary to try to attack, it was jello in my hands. Easy. No roots....just like sin. It lacks punch against God's amazing power.

Just some thoughts...