This Fourth of July my pregnant wife and I celebrated by doing yard work. (I'm going to let that sentence sink in just a little bit longer.) We had let our front yard go all year and it was time to address some issues. Mainly, one big issue that started this spring. You see, we don't have any trees on our property, mainly because we don't want to have to rake leaves in the fall. But our neighbors' tree decided to spawn offspring about 2 feet away from our house. And while two months ago this wasn't a big deal, it has grown into a problem. We walk right by it everyday, but there are other things growing around it that seem to mask its size, and every time that I actually do have time to simply pull out the tree, it seems something comes up.I think this is how I have let sin creep into my life before, too. At first, it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. I can take care of it, just not right now. Tomorrow or next week. And then I just keep putting it off. But it is important to realize that sin doesn't stay the same size every day.

It grows.

And grows.

AND GROWS.

Not only taller, but deeper. This tree had grown over six-feet tall in a few months, but the root went down at least three-feet and spidered out in all directions. It was miserable trying to rip this tree out that, had I taken care of it a month ago, would have been a cyntch, but now gouged a hole in our yard big enough for a kitchen trashcan. But that isn't the worst part.

All around this tree were probably 30-40 new brothers and sisters, taking root and threatening to convert our treeless lot into a small wildlife preserve. I think that a lot of times, when we look at our own lives, we see the not-so-big-sin and think, 'Well, that's not so bad', but forget to realize that letting that sin in our life lay there, we're prompting a breeding ground for any little sin in our life to separate us from our Creator. Lauren and I got the tree out, and as many of the little trees that we could find, but we're going to have to re-comb through our yard every few days, every year, just to make sure that we maintain dominion over our property. And, so should we with our sin struggles.