Originally posted on September 28, 2012. Since then I have been more responsible in my lawn care, though the challenge to live reflectively in a world of information overload persists.
This has been the summer of the arachnids for our family. First it was the ticks. I am not talking about the handful of ticks that tried feasting on our dogs. I am talking about an invasion of ticks into our house. Since they are nearly uncrushable we would drop them into the toilet. But by the time we were killing more than 100 per day–I kid you not–we tired of the bathroom trips and set up localized death pools in the form of old yogurt or sour cream containers half-filled with water.
Then it was the spiders. Three weeks ago Monday I was working in the yard when I was bitten three times by a black widow. By Tuesday afternoon I was delirious and by Tuesday night the spot on my left ear and jaw where the bite happened turned into a puffy hive that marched, like Sherman to the sea, across my face from one ear to the other. Those three bites knocked me out for two weeks.
Needless to say, we did our research on how to reduce the arachnid presence in our home, and found one preeminent principle: control the environment. Wood piles and tall grass provide a welcome habitat for ticks and spiders. Wood piles and tall grass happened to be the exact environment I had allowed in our yard. It did not seem like a big deal at the time to mow but not trim, or to leave the wood on the ground, but now it mattered. Even the yard spray that is supposed to obliterate the arachnids had a warning to the effect of “If you are not going to cut down the tall grass in your yard, do not even bother to spray this stuff.”
Oddly enough, this tick invasion and spider bite has coincided with a season in which God has called me to examine the spiritual environment of my heart–not obvious issues like drinking loads of alcohol or watching sexually inappropriate movies, but the tall grass along the edge of the house that I did not think would harm anything. For me these are small, daily habits such as the never-ending stream of podcasts I listened to or glancing at blogs on my iPad every spare moment or turning on a TV show as soon as the children were in bed or my knee-jerk instinct to immediately Google and research the most trivial questions that came to my mind.
These habits are no more sinful than tall grass is inherently dangerous. At the same time, as God has called me to a season of fasting from them–a proverbial mowing and trimming of the entire yard–I have realized that these habits created a spiritually unhealthy environment. This habitat was hostile to meditation on the gospel, prayer, and communion with the Father, Son, and Spirit. Furthermore, the environment of incessant information input became a context in which pride and lust and discontent could survive and even thrive. The less my heart had moments of rest and reflection throughout the day, the more sinful inclinations could reside unchallenged.
As we examine the environment that our daily habits create, we should be as subtle and shrewd about developing a habitat for spiritual flourishing as the enemy is subtle and shrewd about finding ways to steal, kill, and destroy our spiritual life. Where are the spaces in my day when I can check in with God–if only for a few minutes–and be reminded of his glorious supremacy and his extravagant love for me in Christ? In this age of seemingly infinite information, am I being intentional about what I read, hear, and watch, or am I simply floating aimlessly in the sea of data? Where are the time slots when I can reflect, whether with a friend in Christ or in a journal, on what God is doing in and around me? What habits feed my sinful inclinations rather than making my heart more at home with God? How can I cultivate my sense of belonging in Jesus’ eternal kingdom over and against my craving for significance in this passing kingdom?
The tall grass matters. Let us trim it down to create an environment where we can enjoy the abundant life Jesus died to grant us.
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