Boll Weevils!

Do you have Boll Weevils in your life? Funny thought I know, but for some reason, I read about Boll Weevils some time ago, and learned they are small beetles that feed on cotton plants. They are ugly little creatures, but can multiply very quickly, and are deadly to a cotton field. Cotton plantations figured out after a lot of losses, they had to totally irradicate these pests. They had to trade what they had always done for something new.

Boll Weevils in our lives can infest our spirit and destroy all that God wants for us. Change is hard. Old habits are no longer effective, so they need to be replaced. So many things come into our lives to destroy what we know is right and good. Just like Boll Weevils, we have to change and put alternate measures into our lives to turn things around.

For cotton it's a matter of resting the soil by rotating crops. If the thing Boll Weevils feed on is gone, so the little pests will move on. I have to use that same plan in my life when my Boll Weevils start to destroy. I have learned the most from my Boll Weevils. They were sins I allowed into my life, and they threatened to destroy my relationship with Jesus. They threatened my emotions, spiritual life, prayer time, and almost destroyed relationships.

Before I met JESUS, I was not connected to Church, or even acknowledging Christ. I lived for me, and me alone. My Boll Weevils of greed, anger, selfishness, pride, witchcraft, alcohol and money made me feel good. That was my priority. I didn't want to change, or see any need to. Eventually that life had to end. JESUS brought me to Him, forgave me, and became my personal Savior. Loss of the old ways was not easy, but it was an opportunity to learn new ways, God's ways.

God used a number of vises to squeeze me enough to shape me into the woman He meant me to be, when He created me. It has taken over 30 years to mold me, and we aren't done yet. The word suffering in Greek means pressure to create

God's character in us. God has used my suffering and hardships (consequences of sin) and my pain to help me give up bad habits, and to learn new virtues.

In my brokenness, I can be made whole. God and I have been on many journeys to that wholeness, and each journey has grown me. He has taught me so much, and I have gotten to know Christ so well. God loves me too much to leave me the way I was. My character and heart development is more important to Him than the easiness of my life. Whenever I have been broken, I have been desperate to change, and eventually willing to repent and ask forgiveness. The Boll Weevils are destroyed and the soil of my heart is restored.

Unlike real Boll Weevils and cotton, I am the one that invites them back into my life. Each time God quietly speaks to my spirit through the Holy Spirit. He shows me those pesky sins I allowed in, and once again irradicates them from my life. Those lessons are ongoing and hard, but there is God's Glory in suffering. There were times in those deserts when I thought the vise would never let go. It always has and there is learning and joy when the lesson is learned.

I am human, I still make mistakes, I sin. Even when lessons are learned, I fall down. Jesus picks me up, clears my field, and shows me how to turn around. He never tires of growing me. For that I praise Him, even when it hurts!