Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

I often take walks in my community where there is a wide variety of foliage and flowers.  In the summer months, the ditches fill up with large, beautiful flowers that bloom early in the morning.  To the untrained eye, they may seem to be some sort of morning glory but in fact they are weeds.  As beautiful as they look I would not bring them home and plant them in my flower beds because I know that as weeds, eventually they will overrun any flowers I may have intentionally planted.  If they showed up randomly in my flowerbeds after scattering seeds, I wouldn’t be able to tell if they were part of what I planted or not until they begin to either take over my garden or bloom.  Once they get up to a size of determining they are weeds, then I would have to uproot them and get them as far away from my flowerbed as possible.

This is what often happens to us.  We allow people, habits or things to come into our lives that at the outset seem to be a good idea.  The relationships seem to be a perfect fit, the habit started out as a harmless activity, the things seemed like they were good for us yet somewhere along the way we realize that the relationship is more draining than helpful, the harmless activity is now an obsession and the things are cluttering our space.  What we don’t always realize is that the “weeds” in our life were planted to disrupt us on our walk with God.

The text above is a parable told and a parable explained.  Jesus lets us know that in this life time, “weeds” crop up in our life.  His resolution is to let them grow alongside the wheat until such time that it is plain which ones are which.  At that point, we need to let Him intervene, uproot our “weeds” and take them away.  This means that relationships fall to the wayside, habits become distasteful and things loose their importance.  Instead of mourning the losses, we need to be thankful that our Father who knows what is best for us, weeds our garden so that we may become the beautiful flowers in His garden that we were intended to be.

Take a minute to consider what may be a “weed” in your life.  Ask God to uproot it and to clear your mind so that you may flourish and grow in His perfect garden.