Tuesday 21 February

Next door there is a rampant bamboo patch which borders our property.  I think I’ve told you about it before.  When we first moved in we had to fight to keep it out of our backyard.  So far so successful, however I was looking at it through the kitchen window and realised that it wasn’t just a bamboo patch anymore.  A vine has wrapped itself, uncontrolled, up and in and through the stalls of the bamboo, growing weed upon weed. 

As I stared in horror at it I realised that I really shouldn’t be too surprised, because it can often be like that in life can’t it?  I’ll be angry at someone so then I’ll be rude to them.  I’ll let my tv viewing standards down and soon the words that come out of my mouth start to also stink.  Have you ever experienced this?  Maybe you let yourself think too much about that cute guy from the café and soon you are telling your husband he’s useless.  Or maybe you start gambling on a Friday, just a little, but then you find yourself hiding from your wife the truth about the size of your work bonus.

For some reason weeds grow on weeds in nature and sin grows on sin in life.  I think this might be part of what Paul is getting at when he says to the Ephesians,

“… “don’t sin by letting anger control you.”  Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil.”

- Ephesians 4 v 26 – 27

My experience has been that small bamboo shoots are easier to deal with then a rampant patch and that a rampant patch provides a foothold for a rampant weed-vine to grow.  Now all I need to do is remember this in life too!  To remember that my small problems of character or behaviour are going to be easier to deal with then big ones and that rampant sin provides a foothold for many kinds of problems.  If there’s one good thing about that neighbouring bamboo patch it is that it might serve to remind me of all this!