The Little Worm that Could
…Suck the Life Out of Your Garden
$200 dollars.
That’s what I spent to purchase strawberry-red and snow-white pansies for the small barren area of my yard. Shooting from the center in a few of the grander pots were some tall, purple, tower-like things but I could not tell you what they were. I just wanted my yard to look beautiful. Yet planting, in all truth, can be a bit laborious. It takes sweat in the hot sun . . . and maybe a few tears if you are the only one hauling the heavy cart and loading up the caravan to bring your vision home. You see, the dirt of the meager stretch of my yard is hard and it is right by a wooden fence so even a determined ‘shoveler’ would ram haphazardly into a clunky concrete base every now and then. The soil also bears unexpected rocks, therefore, I had to get a cumbersome bag of the best soil money could buy. You know—the rich kind with the little white pellets. So I loaded it with care and safely brought it home only to unload it all again.
With my sun hat and gloves, foregoing the kneepads, I abandoned all lady-likeness as I dug the soil, and cleared the stones, and uprooted the weeds and then tried to figure out how to take a plant out of its plastic shell. I tried to tap it …, and squeeze it …, and even pull the little troopers.
Pulling doesn’t work by the way.
But then it all came in a rush of glorified wisdom. I needed a smaller—rather, itty bitty—shovel. Well, I did not have one. I ended up using a stick or something obviously not-quite-right. Yet, when the holes were dug and filled and patted, the finished planting scheme ended up surviving my inconsistencies prompting me to drench the pansies and the purple towers quite well because they already had a case of the “wilt” due to the baking sun. At this point, I saw that they looked pitiful. Fortunately, patience pays off because within a week, they stood fabulously in a line of dazzling bunches. But two of the plantings died. I expected that the two deaths were normal because I analyzed the leaves uncovering no bites. Yet one after another, each pansy planting became weak and lifeless. It wasn’t long until one day I frightfully realized the destructive path of shriveling death that had taken place along the fence of my yard.
My gardenotopia had become gardenorexia.
Now this is where the worm comes in. That hideous critter was chomping on the roots! I bought him, and probably his whole family, a garden-variety buffet. How did he live in the dead mass of dirt for so long before I fed him like a pet? He took away the beauty of life and left a “death trail” behind him. Somehow, though, the purple towers are still there.
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Each of us have been exposed to the spiritual worm in our “gardenotopia” of life in which the Lord has given us. The worm may be a sickness or an attitude but usually it all comes down to a heart issue. Distractions are also the worms of our lives that prevent us from being all that we can be in Christ. Sometimes we feed the worm because we failed to prepare our foundation by killing the ugly vermin as we laid the fresh soil. The vermin sucks the life out of the fruit-bearing plants and prevents spiritual fruit from producing. Isn’t it funny how we can see other people’s spiritual gardens and know that “hmmm, there’s a worm there…”?
The best prayer I ever prayed was asking the Lord to reveal to me the issues of my heart. I want to see and fix the issues. I want to be whole and beautiful. I want to stop the cycle of death in my garden of life. If you think you are a “pretty good” person, ask the Lord to show you who you are and what you need to change to help your garden of life thrive. Otherwise, that worm may take over and consume you. Thank God for the purple towers that make us look good while we are learning along the way.
The devil comes only to steal, and to kill, and to destroy but I came that they might have life and have it to the full.
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Originally published in the Devotion Magazine™ Spring 2013 Issue
