“Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” Proverbs 4:23

Planting season is in full swing here in the south, and once again, God is showing me spiritual things through contact with the physical nature He created for us. 

The area we now use for a garden used to house goats, and they had done quite a bit of clearing up in a spot that was particularly overgrown. After parting ways with the goats, we set to finishing up what they weren’t able to do by cutting a few trees down and tilling the land.

This section of land had been used as a garden many years ago by the previous occupants, but because it hadn’t been tilled in so long, the land was a bit difficult to work. The tiller was regularly getting caught on a root or a rock, and navigating around stumps wasn’t the easiest. But we made it work knowing that every year it will get easier.

This year, some of those small stumps have died off enough that we were able to pull them out of the ground; there are fewer rocks and roots to get stuck on; and the growth of what’s been planted seems to have already greatly surpassed last year’s results.

However, there is still a battle to be fought. This is where privets and mimosas come on the scene. These quick-spreading plants are the bane of my garden’s existence. They add so much extra work when it comes to weeding and clearing.

Privets are a type of hedge bush. Many people use them for landscaping but here they just grow wild. We didn’t plant them, and we certainly don’t want to keep them, but here they stay. They propogate through seed scattering(aided by birds and gravity) and through sending roots through the ground to break through into another bush.

This little guy above may not look like trouble, but he’s just the start of a big problem. My husband laughs at me as I can regularly be found pulling these tiny mimosas out of both garden beds and along the paths, then throwing them and muttering “Stupid mimosas”. Some people actually like these trees enough to plant them on purpose! If you’re one of those people, good for you, enjoy your tree, but don’t expect me to agree with you! They can be beautiful, but they’re a nuisance when the seed pods explode and send their seeds all over my garden.

What does this have to do with guarding your heart? The verse above tells us we should guard our hearts because it impacts every area of our life(paraphrase). Our habits, thoughts, movements, and choices determine the direction of our life. If we allow God to direct us, we’re going to have a better path, mostly because of His guidance. If we choose to make our own path, we have to fight the weeds and brambles ourselves, and our habits will drastically affect how much overgrowth we have to fight through.

Sometimes in life, we have privet habits. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. When properly shaped and used for God’s glory, it can bring beauty to the landscape of our life. When allowed to run as it will, it can quickly get out of control, popping up in places in our life that we didn’t plan for, and sending roots throughout our soil that hinders the growth of other things you purposefully planted. When it grows unkempt, the seeds have a farther reach and can spread into those other areas of our life as well.

Mimosas are the things that may seem pretty, but they end up being a pain. These are the habits that we think are no big deal. They’re not causing any harm, right? They’re totally under control, right? They’re even pretty when in bloom! But they grow up to 2 feet per month in peak season and can get as high as 40 feet tall. The roots are a pain to dig out and the trunks can reach 12 inches in diameter. by this point in their growth, they’ve spread hundreds if not thousands of seeds capable of the exact same thing. These are the habits that are dangerous and often take us farther than we want to go at a much faster rate than we imagined possible.

When I was growing up, the small leafy twigs were sometimes stripped and used as a corrective measure. It’s kind of ironic that the thing I’m using now as an anology for a bad habit was used as a switch to correct my bad habits as a child.

Guarding our heart is not just about outside influence from other people and society. We must guard our hearts against the internal things as well that are a part of us. Whether it is a behavior learned from others or a habit developed from a situation we didn’t ask to be in, we get to choose how it takes root in our lives and how it spreads. This is much more easily done with Christ in our hearts and Holy Spirit as our guide.

What are your privets? What are your mimosas? Surrender them to God today and allow Him to uproot the soil of your heart and life. He’ll plant something in its place that will not only benefit you, but bear fruit for the edification of the world around you.