It was the summer of 1987 when the land came up for sale. The old country estate that had sprawled across the green Arkansas valley was being parceled out after the death of the owner. The combination of its remote location and completely undeveloped nature coupled with the urgency of estate settlement meant that the price was already more than reasonable. And because my lawyer father had done legal work for the estate, part of his compensation included an even lower cost and the first choice of the land parcels.
The land didn’t look promising at first. It was nothing more than overgrown acreage hiding beneath a tangle of grass and brush and the neglected trees of the old estate orchard. But fortunately, my father then showed the land to my great-grandfather—a trainer of horses, and thus a man skilled at looking past the flash of externals to the deep truth of bones and teeth and heart. Beneath the unkempt surface of the land, he saw what could be wonderful—convincingly enough that my parents put in a bid. And then the land was theirs—fifteen acres at first, and later on, an additional eleven acres, so that the property extended just to the foot of the low mountains to the south.
But in their untouched state, those twenty-six acres were all but worthless. The property hadn’t been tended in far too many summers, leaving nearly waist-high grass and scrub bushes shaggy around the trees. Although a creek ran through the land, it was so choked with brush that it wasn’t even visible, and it had carved its way deep into a sharp-sided ravine that was not only dangerous but totally impassable. And the property behind the creek, if possible, was even worse—overgrown with the vicious invasion of mock-orange thorn bushes, so badly that my father had to hack a tunnel just to reach the first hill.
But none of this squelched my parents’ resolve. Armed with only a patiently unyielding determination and a pitifully insufficient finishing mower, they set to work on the project before them—the various stages of which would last over two decades. First, they attacked the overgrown grasses. Then, they gave the old orchard trees room to breathe. They weeded out the vines and brambles from the ravine on the east side and fenced the perimeter of the land, including a beautiful iron gate between rock posts. They dug space for dreams on the top of the tallest hill and built a rock-and-cedar house with enough glass that the outdoors was welcomed in. Later came a freestanding garage to contain the quickly growing army of farm implements—the riding mower having been joined by a plethora of hand tools, an RTV, and a Jurassic-sized Kubota with a front-end loader and bushhog attachment. My father, in what he jokingly referred to as his “midlife crisis,” bought an ancient bulldozer and used it to restore the eroding banks of the creek; later, my parents set large boulders in the water to create a stepping-stone path to the other side. The final stage of the ongoing project was clearing the eleven acres across the creek. This required some outside help in the early stages, but the bulk of the work was, as usual, completed by my parents—and, by now, me. Together, we carted thousands of loads of cleared brush, burned it in innumerable bonfires, leveled the uneven land, and uprooted the curse of thorn bushes. My mom discovered a passion for bushhogging—“instantaneous results,” she rejoiced—and I delighted in learning how many rocks, insects, hickory nut shells, arrowheads, and frogs I could fit in my pockets.
And at the end of all that time and effort and sweat and determination—the land was restored to its beauty. Native plants that had been choking beneath the brush now thrived. Birds and wildlife flocked to the new habitat. The creek rejoiced between its banks, the trees flourished free of competition, and historic landmarks were even uncovered. And best of all, because of my parents’ work, because they’d seen what could be and were determined to make it so, I grew up on land that was welcoming and open—land where I could grow and learn and heal.
This is not, however, just a story of land. It’s a story of human hearts, and the way God works.
You see, all of us, left to ourselves, have hearts just as tangled and messy as the uncleared land. Our souls can be overgrown with pride, choked by anger, spiky with the thorns of selfishness and envy and insecurity. And just as the land could only be usable in its full extent once it was cleared, so we cannot become our God-intended selves until the territory of our lives is surrendered to His control and yielded to His purposes.
This, in the most basic sense, is the whole process of sanctification—which is an elaborate word for a simple meaning, becoming like Christ. This growing process, seen at a microscopic level, is really nothing more than giving God daily permission to clear out the invasive species entrenched in our hearts and instead conform us into His purpose. And when we give Him that space to work, we’re promised that “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6b ESV).
But there’s a problem.
The problem is that all too often, we don’t allow God to work. Oh, we may say that we do. We may give lip service to the notion of His sovereignty over our lives. We may pray for His will to be done. We may even pursue all the appropriate righteous actions: church attendance, prayer, worship, confession. But all too often, we don’t give God complete access to all of our souls. We’re happy with inviting Him into the clean and orderly areas of our lives. But around the messy edges, where thorns and brush still lurk, we keep Him out.
We can do this for many reasons. Maybe it’s fear—we’re afraid of how rigorous God’s renovations in us may be. Maybe it’s greed—we really don’t want to relinquish some hidden sin or habit. Maybe it’s control—we’d rather be in charge than trust God to do the work. But I’m convinced that most often, it’s shame. We’re embarrassed to even let ourselves look at those messy frontiers of our life—and we can’t bear the idea of displaying them to God.
But if we believe this, then we’re completely misunderstanding what following God is all about.
This is the reminder I so often need myself: if we try to cover up our flaws, or ignore them, or fix them on our own, we’re demonstrating that we haven’t let the gospel sink from our heads to our hearts. You see, the process of sanctification isn’t meant to be an academic exam we have to pass or an achievement we have to merit or an obstacle course we have to navigate. Instead, it’s meant to be as natural as a sunrise and as life-giving as a long stroll in the woods. It’s an unhurried trail walked hand-in-hand with our heavenly Father, Who lovingly and gently asks for access into every part of our heart—not so that He can condemn us or judge us or retract His love, but so He can heal us and free us to be all that He intended us to be.
Considering this brings to mind God’s assurance to us in Jeremiah 29:13: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Did you catch that? Following God has to be a wholehearted endeavor. God does not promise to reveal Himself to those who seek with a halfhearted, lukewarm effort. Only a full commitment to surrendering ourselves to God’s control—whatever that may look like—results in truly “finding” the fullness of God’s character and empowerment. There can be no unceded territory in the heart of a Christian if we want to experience God in all His glory. The more of ourselves we yield, the more of Him we will receive.
Please don’t misunderstand me: we can’t do this perfectly. I think about my own heart, and I know where my frontiers lie, where I’ve tried to hide from God’s eyes. And I also know that there are other areas to which even I myself am blind. The point of this is not to become lost in useless introspection; instead, it’s to begin, today, to humbly pray this simple request: God, make me all Yours. We pray this prayer in examination, asking for the Holy Spirit to show us where we need to allow God to work. And then when something is shown to us, we act on that—asking God to take control of that area and taking steps to give Him access. The conquest of our hearts by God is a slow process that will only come to complete fruition in eternity, but it’s also one we live out here on earth, day by day, with the kind of fearless faith that understands God’s love, the “perfect love [that] casts out fear” (1 John 4:18) and thus is unafraid to let God into our dark corners.
And when we do this—when we truly live with surrendered hearts—the blessings go beyond us. I’m more grateful than I can say that my parents cleared the land, that they made our home a wonderful place for me to grow up in. But I’m even more glad that they had done the spiritual clearing—working through any lies and misbeliefs that circumstances had accumulated in their own hearts, clearing a spiritual path for me that ensured I wouldn’t be infected by the deceptions they’d been exposed to. This is the beauty of our calling—as we yield our hearts to God, His work in us blesses others. And this is how the Kingdom of God advances—invisible inches in the hearts of humanity, one faith-filled decision at a time, reclaiming the territory of our lives for the beauty of His purpose.