Sherrye, Jonathan and I spent several days this last week clearing out a large section of overgrown landscape beds at our house. There were several large creeping junipers that had literally crept along over the years and had overtaken and killed just about everything else trying to grow in the landscape beds. It took a lot of effort and became a monumental task just to get them out. We had to chainsaw, chop, dig and prune and finally use Jonathan’s truck to pull them out of the ground. If we had dealt with this problem much earlier on it would have been much easier to remove this plague from our otherwise beautiful and enjoyable flower beds.
So too, our spiritual growth can be hindered or choked out if we let things crowd out our spiritual life. Businessmen may become too busy to attend to God’s business. A woman may be so occupied with housekeeping that she has little time for the house (family) of God. Parents and their kids may get so over involved with sports and extracurricular activities that they leave precious little time for the Lord. Young people may be so busy with school activities that prayer, worship, good works and Bible study are neglected. Preachers might get so tied down with meetings, administrative duties, etc., that they too do not take time to spend alone with God.
Jesus warned about the danger of interference (Mark 4:18-19). He spoke of things like the cares of the world, the desires for other things which can choke the word, such that it cannot bear fruit in our lives.
— If we desire to have a healthy spiritual growth, we may need to “weed out” some things in our lives.
I have only mentioned a few of the things that can crowd out and hinder our spiritual growth, no doubt, there are many more. Have you allowed things to hinder yours? If so, decide today that you are going to get back on the right track.
For the elders, Gregg Woodall