PERMANENT WEED KILLER

Where I grew up in Bassfield, Mississippi we had a big yard. And I mowed that yard----- with a push mower.

Oh from time to time Pops would buy a so-called self-propelled mower to “help me out,” but when the propulsion gears got clogged with rich south Mississippi dirt (And the propulsion gears always got clogged.  Where’d they test self-propelled mowers anyway, in a parking lot?).  Anyway, when the self-propelled mowers stopped propelling themselves they became much heavier push mowers. 

I pushed that entire yard spring, summer, and fall.  If I didn’t get up early when it was cool, Pops would say, “I bought you a hat didn’t I?” and I’d mow that whole freakin’ yard in the Mississippi sun.  For some reason my parents didn’t discover  riding mowers until I moved out of state for college.

I hated yardwork.  Still do.

But back then on a Saturday under 100 degree plus sun while my friends drove by blowing their horns and waving, I hated the grass in that yard with the kind of seething, personal antipathy that teenagers usually reserve for other teenagers.

So one day, when Pops left me alone at noon with instructions to mow the yard because I should have gotten my butt up while it was still cool----- I sprayed the entire yard with diluted diesel, and then I sat on the steps of our trailer and watched the grass die.

It was BEAUTIFUL.  The blades of grass shrunk and curled in the sun.  The tall seeded stems drooped and seemed to slide back in to the earth.  It all turned this beautiful winter brown, first in spots were the droplets of diesel fell, but after an hour baking in the oven that was Mississippi the diesel basting turned the entire yard an even shade of beautiful, beautiful, dead, not needing to be mowed brown.

I started this story to make some deep point.  Where was I going with this?

Oh, yeah. 

The grass grew back.  The mowing started all over again.

Around this time,  in Sunday school, we were studying the Judges (as in the book of Judges), and I read Judges 9: 45.

And Abimelech fought against the city all that day; and he took the city, and slew the people that was therein, and beat down the city, and sowed it with salt (KJV)

Our Sunday school teacher explained that salt kills the root and the makes it impossible for anything to ever grow on that soil again.

I put my fingertips together, leaned back in the pew, and said nothing, but in my mind I was laughing, “Bwaahahahaha!”

No.  I didn’t spread salt on my parents’ yard.  I was frustrated not suicidal.

But I nurtured a vision, a dream that one day I would leave that place and build myself a big house. 

And I was going to pave the entire yard, and every year I would go outside and fertilize the pavement with salt just to make sure that NOTHING GREW.

However, we built our house in a planned subdivision and both the housing covenant and my wife prohibited that type of landscaping.

All this time though, I’ve remembered the growth killing power of salt.

Hebrews chapter 12 urges Christians to “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.”  The author wants to prevent us from “[falling] short of the grace of God” and becoming “defiled.”

Now (and here’s the connect to my grass-cutting rant), the passage tells HOW Christians fall short of grace and become defiled.  It tells how we fail to pursue peace and holiness.

“lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble”

We get angry.  We feel wronged.  We have moments of envy, jealousy, wrath, lust, etc., etc.  Yes, WE, as in we CHRISTIANS.  But, we fight those sinful feelings.  We turn from them, rebuke, push them down, pray them away.  We stop, get ahold of ourselves, and breathe.  We cut off, or shall I say, “We mow down,” the weeds of sinful thinking.

But the grass always grows back.

Just when you think you’ve conquered your anger, “That chick said what?”  Now you gotta crank up your spiritual engine and cut back your emotions again.

It’s exhausting.

What you need is a way to kill the root of bitterness so it can’t spring back up to cause you trouble.

You need SALT.

And you have some.  More specifically, you are some.

Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13)

Fertilize your emotional landscape with your own spiritual salt.

How?

Colossians 4: 6.

Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one. 

Salt your emotional ground with what Paul had previously advised in Colossians.

Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.  (Colossians 3: 12-14)

Spread your spiritual salt all over your emotional landscape by being good to people---- to all people.

My grandmother and the women of her generation all seemed so calm, so centered, so sure of who they were, so at peace with their choices and circumstances.  It was Zen-like.

Now, I remember them singing to themselves.  When their men or their children or their circumstances got out of line, they would cook, or clean, or do whatever was their normal task for the day, and they would quietly hum the old hymns, and sometimes ad-lib Bible verses into the lines.

It was Zen-like. 

It was genius.

It was Scripture.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. (Colossians 3: 16-17)

Spread your spiritual salt by praising God---- in all situations. 

Hum those hymns and gospel songs.  Treat every assignment and task as a chance to glorify Jesus.  Thank God---- for everything.

You’ll kill the roots of bitterness, and one day you’ll look out and realize that you don’t have to trim the edge off your anger anymore.  The bitterness will be dead, dried up from the root.

And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful (Colossians 3: 15)

You’ll be living the dream.

---Rev. Anderson T. Graves II   (email:  atgravestwo2@aol.com )

Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my blog at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com  

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SELF CONTROL

The Apostle Paul was all about self-control.  In 1 Corinthians, he referred to himself as a spiritual athlete who disciplined his body to keep it under control (9: 24-27).  In advice to his protégé Titus, Paul advocated self-discipline and self-control as necessary for a Christian leader (1: 8; 2: 12).  In Galatians 5, Paul listed self-control as one of the fruit of the having the Holy Spirit.  Paul developed such mastery of his desires that he remained celibate his entire life---- and not-locked-in-a-monastery celibate or restricted-by-a-vow-and-church-mandate celibate, but traveling-all-over-the-middle-east-and-Mediterranean celibate because I choose to be.

That’s some serious self-control.

But, sometimes Paul got really, really emotional, like in 2 Corinthians.

O Corinthians! We have spoken openly to you, our heart is wide open. (2 Corinthians 6: 11)

“Hear wide open”?  Sounds like the title of an emo-rock song.

Paul went on to say:

We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us (verse 12, NIV)

And to ask/ beg the Church of Corinth to:

Open your hearts to us. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have cheated no one.  (2 Corinthians 7: 2)

Paul sounds downright SENSITIVE.   

I was thinking about this for Sunday school and wondering, “What happened to all of that 1^st century self-control?”  And I realized that the question revealed as much about me and my social context as it did about Paul and his.

My community in Bassfield, Mississippi, trained me to control my emotions.  From my earliest memories of interacting with adults, my father, my mother, aunts, uncles, older cousins, teachers, my big sister---- everybody taught, tested, and reinforced the idea that to “man up” and “grow up” I had to put my feelings in check.  Strength and maturity meant emotional self-control.

Since those formative years I’ve been blessed to learn other perspectives on emotional well-being.  I came of age at the height of the sensitive man movement.  My peers have led the charge in giving men and boys the freedom to cry.  I look back now on those early rural lessons in self-control, and I compare that with what I’ve learned in my intellectual wanderings, and Paul’s emotional perspective in the Bible.

Now I know.

My folks in Bassfield were right.

Kinda.

Emotional self-control is a mark of maturity.  Emotional self-discipline does indicate personal strength.

But not the way we typically practice them.

Love, mercy, transparency, forgiveness, humility, compassion, tenderness, etc. make you vulnerable.  These feelings lead you into situations in which you give more than you receive.  These emotions make you available to people, some of whom will inevitably hurt you.

Anger, vengeance, lust, ambition, etc. make you feel strong and powerful.  They lead to the pursuit of immediate self-satisfaction, which is ---- well, it’s immediately self-satisfying.

Most people, especially men, think “control” means suppressing the emotions that make you feel vulnerable while feeding the emotions that make you feel strong.

That’s the exact wrong kind of self-control.

God wants us to have the RIGHT KIND of self-control.  In Genesis 2, Cain, Adam’s & Eve’s oldest son, got angry at his little brother Abel.  God told Cain to get a hold on his emotions.

So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?  If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”  (Genesis 4: 6, 7)

Don’t let your feeling control you, Cain, but you should rule over it.

Biblcal self-control means that we check, cool, suppress, subjugate, rule over the negative emotions that make us feel strong.  Those are the ones we watch and hold in check.

We feel anger, but we control it so that it doesn’t become sin. (Ephesians 4: 26)

The Old Testament passage that Ephesians quotes explains how to self-regulate that anger.

Be angry, and do not sin. Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still. (Psalm 4: 4)

The sun shouldn’t go down on our wrath because we’re supposed to sit down, calm ourselves, and find our emotional anchor in God.

Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord. (verse 5)

This is how the Bible teaches us to control our emotions.

Consciously check the emotions that make you feel close you off and make you feel strong in the short term, and deliberately nurture the emotions that open your heart to others.

And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you (1 Thessalonians 3: 12)

Peter said

Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous; not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing. (1 Peter 3: 8, 9)

And even though Peter didn’t always get his fellow-apostle Paul (2 Peter 3: 15, 16); Peter didn’t think it was too hard to understand Paul’s perspective on self-control.

Paul, the apostle of self-discipline, was so touch-feely in his letter to the Corinthians because transparent, vulnerable brotherly love is the epitome of strength and self-control.

Think about Moses.

Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth. (Numbers 12: 3)

Think about Jesus.

Think about the discipline, the strength, the self-control it took to not burn down the whole doggone planet, but instead to love, forgive, heal, help, listen to, repeat Himself over and over and over to, and sacrifice Himself for------ everybody.

Individual self-control is good, and Biblical, and necessary.    But’s it’s different from what we may have learned.

And so, self-control in Jesus’ name in Jesus church is not the stuck up, funless, heartless shallow religiosity we have too often practiced. 

Christian self-discipline in the church means having the strength to be humble, weak, and vulnerable in front of people.

It means being strong enough to speak openly and say, “My heart is wide open to you.”

In the church, ruthlessness means immaturity. Maturity brings transparency.  Power struggles are for babes in Christ.  Mature Christians seek opportunities to give not to acquire.

I speak as to my children--open wide your hearts also. (2 Corinthians 6: 13)

Add that kind of self-control to sound knowledge of Biblical truth, and God will add to the church today like He added to the church in Paul’s and Peter’s day.

But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1: 5-8)

---Rev. Anderson T. Graves II   (email:  atgravestwo2@aol.com )

Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my blog at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com  

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves