I’ve been fighting buffalo bur for about three months now. Several times a week, I’ll spend 30-45 minutes walking the yard with a bucket, shears, and very thick leather gloves. I slowly pace back and forth, looking for the telltale yellow flowers, thorns, and globular leaves. At first it was nice seeing the numbers decline, but as the weeks have turned into the months, I’m growing tired of the continual fight. It seems like no matter how closely I watch the yard, more are continually cropping up. I’m sure that the seeds are being brought in by the wind and random animals that traverse our yard, adding to the ones from the plants that I failed to overcome last year.
The other night as I was mowing, I saw more of the stuff that had been hiding amongst some overgrown weeds. The thought in the back of my mind was to just give up, leave it be and deal with it next year. It took a while to shake the feeling, aided by the knowledge that letting it grow this year would make for the same nightmare next year, having wasted the last few months of progress and possibly even making things worse next year. So after I was done mowing, I grabbed my bucket, gloves, and shears and walked the yard…again.
Things like that happen in our lives. We face the same thing over, and over, and over, and eventually we want to just give up, to give into whatever we’re fighting. It can be any number of things for different folks, but regardless it’s the same hopeless feeling – just give up, you’ll never win, you’ll never get it under control, you’ll never overcome it.
I’m not going to try to sugar-coat things or say to just suck it up and get through it. But rather, when we encounter situations like these, we can fall into the Arms of Christ, confess our struggles, and ask for His strength to help us keep going.
He renews my strength. (Psalm 23:3a)
My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness. (2 Cor 12:9b)
I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)
Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)
His strength is perfect when our strength is gone
He’ll carry us when we can’t carry on
Raised in His power, the weak become strong
His strength is perfect, His strength is perfect
(His Strength Is Perfect, Steven Curtis Chapman)