The rainy season in South Thailand has just finished and I’m spending time in the mountains again. With the enormous amount of rainfall in the past 3-4 months, the greenery in in the local jungle has grown amazingly. Tree branches and shrubbery have been growing out into the usual pathways, making passage difficult. In places the paths are completely blocked, requiring circuitous “off-path” diversions or just wading through the foliage at great effort in order to get where one is going.

The answer to all this is to bring out my trusty machete and start hacking away at the overgrowth. Even better – I found some long-handled branch trimmers (sort of like secateurs on steroids) and have been gaily snipping the bushes and tree-branches invading the pathways so that unimpeded travel can occur once again. It’s been quite an effort, but the result is worth it – now I can get to the cliff faces or lookouts quickly once again to get on with what I really want to do.

As I was snipping some long vines the other day, it made me think about the “overgrowth” in our lives. It seems to me that it’s very easy to let some things in life get out of control, things that impede our progress to the things that are important to us. Some things even end up sucking the life out of us, so that we don’t even want to aim for anything better.

What things would you consider overgrowth in life?...

• Hours spent each day looking at social media…
• Binge watching streamed TV shows and movies until 2 am in the morning…
• Spending long evening after evening at the bar or club…
• An unhealthy obsession about motor vehicles, or football, or golf, or fishing…
• Hours and hours a day absorbing the latest news, because you just have to know what’s happening in the world…

Basically, anything that takes over our lives and prevents us from living balanced, healthy lives and keep us from spending quality time with those nearest and dearest to us is overgrown “shrubbery” that needs the snip. It can happen so easily – especially in the last two years as the usual ways of living, working and interacting with others has changed so much due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We can’t go and do the things we normally do, so we stay home and drink, or bury ourselves in social media, or read the news, or binge watching. Many of the things that are fun or helpful in moderation grow out of control and end up causing problems – stopping us from living the healthy productive lives that God wants us to live.

What should we do about this? Snip, snip, snip!

It’s time to snip some of these right back. It’s time to take some of these habits and either chop them right off for a while, or at least prune them back until they are very small. Reflect on what is going on in your life right now. Get back in control of the things we do, instead of letting them control them. Start new, healthier habits and routines. Exercise, daily devotional time, good eating habits and regular times spent with your family, friends and loved ones. And focus on what Jesus would want you to do each day.

Hebrew 12:1-2 says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”

Let us keep our eyes on Jesus, become more aware of what we are doing with our lives and snip, snip, snip!