Devil's Cucumbers

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I do love it when people think well of me.  When I can drop a story that casts myself in an angelic light.  When I can share a tidbit of information that nobody else knew, yet that fascinates everybody.  When I can avoid revealing my weaknesses and counsel everybody else on theirs.  When I can receive compliments oh so graciously, not worrying all too much about encouraging others. 

A short time ago, I observed a slender emerald sprout growing in the garden of my heart.  At first the sprout looked promising, like the honeysuckle of wisdom or the rose of love.  Instead, it soon blossomed into a cucumber.  Such a plant one should cherish and nurture!  Thus I evidently did, unconsciously, because my cucumber of pride soon revealed itself to be what my family calls a "poisonous cucumber,"  a plant also nicknamed, "devil's cucumber."

These plants produce fruit that look temptingly akin to luscious cucumbers, but are in fact poisonous.  They spread like food poisoning at a summer picnic, ejecting their devilish seeds into the ground, and their vines are like corkscrews that bind nearby plants and suffocate them completely.  The lily of humility was the first to go, and then the fern of sincerity followed, withering away into a dead mass of brown wilted leaves.

Soon enough, I glanced in at the garden of my heart and saw only poison cucumbers everywhere, sapping strength from my soul and releasing a repulsive aroma.  Strangely, the lily of humility and fern of sincerity I had sweated and labored to grow still always remained somewhat sickly and invalid.  Yet this poison cucumber, without me even realizing it or shedding a drop of sweat, had infested the entire plot. 

As I surveyed this disaster, I finally realized that my thumb was most decidedly brown, and I have decided to call in the Master Gardener.  I have previously been treating Him as the weeder:  "Can you weed out the poison cucumber of pride, the squash of confidence, the blackberry of self-pity?  Please?"  And He does root out those infestations, but then I get right back in the garden like a giddy three year old, throwing seeds willy-nilly and growing only those same pests again. 

So I resign.  I am no longer the supervisor of sowing, the president of pest-protection, or the manager of manuring.  From now on I am the humble worker under the Head Gardener.  I will weed and manure-spread and water only as the Master Gardener gives direction.  He will weed out those poison cucumbers, I will tote them away in the wheelbarrow He gives me, and He will plant lilies.  He knows exactly how much sunlight of His face to give those lilies, how much living water, how many droughts of difficulty they need.  Because He is the Master Gardener and lilies of humility are His speciality.