July 5 - Weed?

"Jesus told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.’"

Last month a friend volunteered to transplant some of last years plants from the containers they had outgrown, into the garden borders. This she did. Job completed she told me she had saved the most vigorous of the plants and replanted them in the border just outside the patio doors as she felt they would soon flower and be a bright splash of summer colour, along with the roses there.

Before she began it would have made sense to be able to identify the difference between a cultivated plant and a weed. Not as straightforward as it sounds, as today, so many of our cultivated flowers filling our gardens were, in the past, weeds. What an amazing sight a mustard field is – acres of golden yellow. Must be a flower? No, the mustard is a weed. Similarly, buttercups, daisy's, dandelions, cornflowers. These can be found in domestic gardens happily rubbing shoulders with cultivated plants. The difference is, attractive though they are, eventually weeds take over, wrapping their tentacles around the genuine plants, and if left to continue growing, will choke the life out of them.

The same applies to our spiritual 'gardens' How many things have we poured our time and attention into that are choking out the Spiritual flowers we are trying to grow? How can we tell the difference between them when it's so easy to mistake one for the other? I ask myself, am I watering weeds?

A weed is defined as:

Noun | \ˈwēd\
1. A valueless plant, growing wild, especially one that grows on cultivated ground to the exclusion or injury to the desired crop.
2. An undesirable or troublesome plant, especially one that grows profusely where it is not wanted.

While Galatians 5:22-25 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.”

These verses set the standard. If what we are investing our time and energy into isn’t growing those types of flowers, we need to look closely to be sure it isn’t a weed. If it is a weed, we have to be willing to reach down into the dirt and uproot it before it grows and starts choking out the blooms we are working so hard to grow. Just like those plants my friend moved into the border by the patio doors? Oh yes, they were vigorous alright! As soon as their roots hit good soil, they set to work and tried to take over everything surrounding them. We had been fooled by their appearance and had cultivated a bed of weeds

Can you see examples of that going on in your own life? I hate to admit it, but I know that I can see it in my life without having to look very hard at all. It's time I consult our Head Gardner.

Listen to today's music presented by The Mullins - “The Garden”. Just click on the picture.