It used to be a vacant lot, in the middle of town. Over months and seasons the grass and weeds have slowly given way to rows of potatoes, apples, carrots, pumpkins, onions, and more. This is our local community garden. We even have a poly-tunnel that fills up with tomatoes, lettuce, and courgettes that grow bigger than my forearm. Some of our volunteers are keen gardeners with plenty of knowledge and experience, and then there are people like me and my wife, ready to do as we’re told. This year, I’ve spent a lot of my time in the garden on one job in particular: killing things. 

It’s funny, isn’t it, that in a place devoted to growing and caring for plants, one of the most consistent jobs of all is killing them? But it must be done. The weeds are relentless. If we didn’t kill them, they would overwhelm our vegetables, our paths, and everything we’ve worked to develop. They have to die, so the garden can live. Yet no matter how many times we kill them, we know one thing for certain: they’ll be back. 

In fairness, there is something satisfying about pulling up a big, established weed. It feels like significant progress. It instantly changes how everything looks, noticeably shifting the garden away from chaos, towards order. Pulling up the little weeds isn’t nearly as gratifying—they’re fiddly and small, and they feel insignificant because even if you pull up a bunch of them the look of the garden stays pretty much the same. It’s easy to ignore them, but this summer I started focusing more of my attention on them for one simple reason: little weeds don’t stay little.

A big weed might be more satisfying to tackle, but it also takes more work. The roots are more established, thicker, and harder to fully remove. In the process of growing large, the weed also does more damage—potentially stealing resources from our plants, or spreading more weed-seeds across our cultivated land. A small weed, in contrast, is much easier to remove—and every time you remove a small weed, you’ve also removed the large weed that it would have become. 

As I was pulling up fiddly little weeds in the garden one evening, I thought about how easily the weeds of sin and selfishness spring up in the garden of my heart. As many times as I fight against pride and greed and discontentment, I still constantly see them (and so many others) springing up fresh all over again, threatening to choke out my best intentions and my most fruitful labours with their noxious, tangled tendrils. And while big, destructive sins can’t be ignored, I do confess that sometimes I’m tempted to leave the little ones alone. They don’t seem to be doing much harm. They aren’t very noticeable. They haven’t done much damage. Yet. But I’m learning that this is exactly the best time to fight them—and fight them hard—before they become established. Before they grow the thick roots that tangle up in everything and start to feel so comfortable and hurt so much to pull out. Before they go to seed and start growing all kinds of other sins like self-justification, manipulation, cover-up, and deception. Yes, God has the power to conquer every sin our hearts can grow if we bring them to him, but the process won’t be pretty, and quite often the larger they grow, the more reluctant we’ll be to come to him for help. The very best time to kill a weed will always be the very first moment we see it. As soon as we’re convicted by God’s word, or a trusted friend, or by noticing the damage we’ve done to others—that’s the time to act. When you remove a little weed, you’ve also removed the large weed it would have become.