Cleaning

At work today we were weeding and cleaning. Since it's rather mindless work a lot of the time, it gave me a lot of time to think, and I actually started thinking about the processes of those two very similar tasks. In The Shack, there is a scene where the main character works in a garden (both weeding and pruning) that turns out to be his soul, and that metaphor came back to me as I was weeding today. I was thinking about: how do you know what's a weed? You have to have experience, and often help at first, to know what's a weed and what's good. Weeding is also hard work, just like working with God for a better, more Christ-like soul is. You have to make choices--am I going to pull every single one of these tiny little weeds? Are they really that important? Wouldn't it be easier to come back later and do them? Finally, weeding can be discouraging. Weeds will just keep popping back up, no matter what you do. Weeding can feel pointless, if you're not careful. But think what a mess a garden would be if you never weeded! You would never get fruit or veggies or whatever out of that garden!! And the fight for our souls is the same way--it may feel hopeless sometimes, like we'll never succeed in getting a perfect spotless soul--and we won't, even with God's help, at least not on this earth--but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try!

Later we were cleaning. When you're cleaning (especially something that isn't yours--sorry, sad but true) it's so easy to get into a mechanical state, where you just do the task without thinking about it. That often means that you don't scrub at that mark on the floor, you just mop without paying the least bit of attention to what you're doing. How often do my times with God just become mechanical--read this chapter of the Bible, now read this book, now pray for these things, now do this, now to that--without making any sort of impression on me?