Seeing green grass started to grow around my lawn, it is really soothing. Combining with recent rains and cooler days than previous years, lawn grass is having a good growing environment this Spring. Naturally, it also means that it is time to take care of our lawn.

In light of dandelion and other broad-leaf weeds were rampant across our lawn last year, my wife told me that we need to use fertilizer with added weed control, as it is supposed to fertilize our lawn and suppress the growth of weeds at the same time. Then, in a morning after our application of the fertilizer, to our dismay, we saw dandelions and wild violet popped up from our lawn. We were not happy campers certainly. Apparently the fertilizer is not as effective as we would think.

Then, I recalled a visit to my friend’s house a while ago. I was impressed by her neighbor’s absolutely gorgeous lawn – emerald green and no weeds! It is like a green carpet! My friend mentioned that her neighbor’s lawn not only is beautiful but also has the advantage of low maintenance – no need to do weed control as most of us do and less lawn mowing too. It is really amazing.

After carefully looked at my friend’s neighbor’s lawn, I find that the lawn grass is so dense and fine that no weeds can grow in between. Also, because the growth of the grass is so slow that her neighbor does not need to mow the lawn as often as we all do. Isn’t this great? Yes! It is.

From this experience, it gives me a thought on our spiritual journey.  Analogously, our heart is like a spiritual lawn (心田). We need to maintain and do weed control on it in order to become a beautiful spiritual lawn. When we are diligent to spend time with our Lord, our spiritual grass would grow like my friend’s neighbor’s lawn – it is dense and fine and it will crowd out any unwanted weeds in between.

On the other hand, when we are too lay back, our spiritual lawn would grow weeds and our spiritual grass would be suppressed. Pastor Rob Smith once said, “Sin will find its way to us when we are idling”.  This reminds me of what God said to Cain in the book of Genesis after God rejected Cain’s offering to Him. He said, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?  If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it 「你為什麼發怒呢？你為什麼變了臉色呢？你若行得好，豈不蒙悅納？你若行得不好，罪就伏在門前。它必戀慕你，你卻要制伏它。」(Genesis 4:6-7)”

What does God mean “do what is right”? My interpretation is we have to do things according to His will. To do this, we need to be able to understand His will first. This would require time and effort spent to establish a good relationship with Him. In this way, we will have a good spiritual lawn that is pleasing to God’s eyes. Because there is no more unwanted weeds (sins) in the lawn! Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, have you done your “weed control” recently? Let’s be reminded that only through diligence we can have a beautiful spiritual lawn.

Disclaimer: The sharing is pure from my personal view; therefore, please don’t take it to be absolute. Thanks.