Lessons from a Scarecrow - Weeds

Genesis 3:17-19 (NIV)

17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;

    through painful toil you will eat food from it

    all the days of your life.

18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

    and you will eat the plants of the field.

19 By the sweat of your brow

    you will eat your food

until you return to the ground,

    since from it you were taken;

for dust you are

    and to dust you will return.”

As I stand here and watch over these vegetable plants it is amazing how fast the weeds sprout up and try to take over the garden. It is the biggest cause of extra work in the garden.

From the very beginning, weeds have been a symbol of mankind’s disobedience to God.  God had made the garden to be cultivated, but after the curse, man would have to work to remove thorns and thistles from the fruit bearing vegetation.  What a bummer!  Have you ever had to pull weeds?  Weeds are the most prolific of all vegetation.  It has been said, “Weeds never sleep.”  Weeds are like sin.  They don’t take any nurturing or care to grow.  They will overtake us unless their roots are yanked.  The root is the cause of the sin.

Once I clear the weeds from the soil in my garden how nice the dark, rich soil looks without the presence of weeds.  And yet I know that within a matter of a few short weeks, the weeds will be back.  When I plant my vegetable seeds, and water them faithfully each day, the tiny seedlings eventually pop up out of the ground.  But guess what?  Right alongside the precious vegetable seedlings there are tiny weed sprouts.

It is difficult to tell the difference between some weeds and the good plants.  For example, carrots seedlings look almost identical to small grass-like weeds when they first sprout.  If I try to pull the weeds when they are young, I risk pulling up the carrot seedlings.  As much as I want to weed right away to keep things under control, I must wait.  There are small weeds that grow in our hearts, and we are unaware of them until they become large enough to see.  If God showed us all of the weak areas in our lives when they were too small to see, we would perhaps pluck up the good seed of what God is trying to do.  He knows how and when to open our eyes to the weeds in the garden.

Even while I sleep at night, the wind and other elements spread weed seeds in the garden.  Like sin, weeds can creep into our lives when we are unaware of it.

Jesus taught we must be careful when trying to distinguish between good and bad in the garden.  The devil is clever, and he will sow those persons into the body of Christ who are destructive...malicious gossips, greedy, promiscuous, selfish, argumentative, false prophets, dishonest, manipulators, ambitious etc..  He likens true believers to wheat, and those who are not to tares (weeds).  As we see the interaction between the true and false, and give it time, the nature of the tare will be revealed.

Dear Lord, we pray that we would have the wisdom to get the weeds of sin out of our life. Help them not to take over and strangle the good that You have in all of us. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.