To stay on top of keeping a beautiful flower bed or lawn, we have to manage the weeds. If we wait a couple of months letting them grow the whole time, when we finally realize we are overrun with weeds, it's intimidating and overwhelming to pick them all out. Weeding is much easier when we pick them daily. When we catch them early, they are small, have little to no root, and are easy to pluck and through away.
Same with the weeds in our life. If we ignore the weeds and let them grow, they truly do choke out the good fruit of our lives. Our best intentions are squashed because the weeds control our lives. Weeds such as jealousy, anger, bitterness, envy, ungratefulness all choke out the good fruit. They've got to be pulled up and discarded. Sometimes we don't have a weed problem, we've got a soil problem. The soil of our heart is producing weeds instead of fruit.
In my previous life, my soil was "soiled" with excessive alcohol. When that was the base, nothing but weeds grew from it. I got mean, undisciplined, put myself in dangerous situations, out of control, profane. Then came weeds of regret, shame, laziness, lies, self-pity. When my soil was bad, I couldn't pick the weeds fast enough. Quite honestly, I was so blind to the weeds, I didn't even notice what they were doing.
Jesus started shining lights on my weeds. I felt it in my heart that He wanted something better for me and while many things in my life were going very well, there was a stirring in my heart that that particular area of the garden needed an overhaul. I couldn't bear the fruit He wanted me to bear without reconditioning that soil. And with His strength and direction, I did. I still have weeds but with God's grace and mercy, I am managing them and more fruit is coming from it.