Battling weeds of discouragement

When it comes to my garden, I tend to miss the forest for the trees, or rather, miss the flowers for the weeds. I see my garden on the half-full side. Unfortunately, it’s half-full of weeds and half-empty of produce.

I was challenged about my glum gardening attitude after spending two hours waging a fierce battle against the dandelions and other intruding enemies. I was nearly to my well-deserved lunch reprieve when I noticed several, tiny blooming snapdragons in gorgeous colors of purple and pink. I was delighted, but also amazed that I had spent nearly two hours working furiously in the garden oblivious to their existence. If I hadn’t bent over for those last few handfuls of weeds, then I would have left my garden with the work accomplished, but the beauty missed. My attitude can easily fixate on discouragement. Grumbling about the never-ending futility of capturing weeds and losing sight of the higher purpose. Not so with Caleb.

Photo by Yashika CG on Unsplash

The Israelites were delivered from Egypt and miraculously provided for by the Lord. Then, the plot twist. Although Caleb and Joshua (two of the leaders sent as spies) beg the people to trust in the Lord’s sufficiency to accomplish what he promised, the people—in rebellion—refuse to enter the promised land. This is followed by God’s long punishment on the people–one sand-ridden year for each day the spies had investigated the land.

Caleb and Joshua also experience “the vast and dreadful wilderness” (Deuternomy 8:15) but, while their peers perish, they enter the promised land alongside the sons and daughters of their own deceased demographic. And the 85-year-old Caleb is still eager to finish the delayed mission. He is confident that the Lord will accomplish what he promised even after the decades-long delay. “Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said” (Joshua 14:12).

Caleb has kept his enthusiasm and resolve to accomplish the mission others feared. Caleb’s unflinching focus reminds me again of Abraham who “did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:20–21).

Here I am, battling weeds in a seasonal garden that refuses to grant me the mastery, yet I know my own heart easily fills with similar weeds—weeds of discouragement, doubt, and fear. I’m not quite the age of Caleb’s first brave entry into Canaan, but already I grow faint over conquering the land. Isn’t it good to have a faithful Saviour who daily intercedes for us? (Hebrews 7:25). To be “surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses” motivating me to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles” so that I too can finish the race (Hebrews 12:1).

The beauty that grows within my soul is not the fleeting, fading flourish of one tiny bloom lost in a sea of weeds. The great joke is on the weeds that haven’t yet seen that they are already defeated.