Image taken from https://www.petalrepublic.com/zinnia-flower/
I’m an emerging green thumb (thanks to my mom and Aunt Beth who are truly experts, and of course Martha Stewart). Several years ago, I learned about deadheading—removing dead flower heads from a plant to encourage more blooming (Google.com). Essentially, you cut off what’s dead (and unnecessarily draining resources from the plant) to allow for new, vibrant growth.
Last summer and early fall, when I was deadheading the zinnias in our front yard, I thought, this is exactly why we need to remove sin from our lives.
I think we often conceive of sin as a list of do’s and don’ts; a set of standards that we try not to transgress. If our understanding of sin is this one dimensional, then we fail to grasp what it does in our lives and the detrimental impact it has on our relationships.
Sin is like a dead flower—it drains us, weighs us down, and detracts from the beauty of what our lives could be.
When we live in sin, our lives, and relationships, look dull and dried up. We lack vibrancy and our lives look, well, dead. Sin unnecessarily steals emotional and spiritual energy from us; resources which could be allocated toward our growth and flourishing. Sin mares the image of God that we’re made in (Genesis 1:27) and prevents us from living into the fullness that God intends for our lives and relationships.
If we want to thrive, we need to fastidiously prune sin. We need to cut out the dead, decaying parts of our lives to make room for new, beautiful growth. Only then will our lives reflect the fullness of who God designed us to be; only then will we fully live into his image (Genesis 1:27).