Clear the Cedars, Please

I was over at The Pioneer Woman (mostly because I adore her cooking!) when an article written by her husband caught my eye. Normally, Ree does the blogging, but this time her husband was the one writing "Why We Chop Down Cedar Trees." Really interesting article, and it got me thinking about what a parallel it is to the sin that can creep into our behaviour. Left unchecked, it can grow quickly and stifle relationships and all of the good things growing in our hearts and in our lives. It seems pretty harmless at first, a lie here, a loss of temper there, but it KILLS. Sometimes, our sin even looks nice on the outside, even as it's devastating the soil of our hearts. If we want to have our lives focused on the Lord 100%, the cedars have to go.

Recently my childhood church did a restoration service for a former member who had entrenched himself in sin so deeply that he left. It destroyed his marriage, his relationships with the people at the church, the bonds of trust that had formed over the decades he had attended there. I have no doubt his kids were hurt in the process, too. While it's great to celebrate the return of one who had turned his back on his sin and returned to the Lord (and the fellowship of other Christians), the CEDARS MUST BE CLEARED. My prayer for him is that, through the wise counsel of fellow believers, through the power of the Holy Spirit, and through self-discipline, the roots of the sin will be torn out so the ground can be planted with good things that will bear much fruit in his life and the lives of others.