Picture this: A stone flower bed encircling a giant willow oak with a vibrant array of summer annuals strewn among colorful perennials.
Spectacular, right?
Well, that was what I envisioned for this summer’s horticultural centerpiece of our front yard, and it was a great idea, except for one small error in execution.
The problem started innocently enough with the wintertime grand opening of a new store. As I browsed its aisles, I was impressed with a huge display of seeds, including vegetables, herbs, and flowers of all kinds. I could not resist the promise of summertime beauty on such a cold, dreary day. So, I bought a dozen packs of different flowers, coordinating colors, heights, and even blooming times to ensure my vision of a perfect flower garden would become a reality in a few short months.
When the fickle Mississippi weather finally cooperated long enough between overnight freezes and tornadic thunderstorms, I cleaned out the front flower bed and added in some rich compost. Then, I took those seeds of promise out of hiding and planted them strategically around my budding willow oak.
After a joyful afternoon of planting, I briefly remembered how my Mamaw Katie would take each seed packet, put it on a small stick, and stake it in the ground right by her newly sown seeds. I smiled and thought, “How silly! And how tacky!”
I was not marring my perfectly envisioned horticultural creation with 12 tacky paper seed packets staked into the ground, not even for the sake of honoring my grandmother’s quaint tradition. So, with an ever-so-slight sense of haughtiness, I stood up, wiped my dirty hands, and threw away those seed packets.
All was right in my world … or so I thought.
Over the next few weeks, nothing much happened on the surface of my flower bed. However, I was not concerned because I knew it would take quite some time for those precious seeds to germinate in the still-cold Mississippi soil.
Then, one warm morning, it happened. I walked outside and saw tiny green sprigs bravely sticking their heads out of the dark dirt beneath the oak tree. I was so ecstatic. Soon, dozens of different sprigs inched their way around the willow oak.
But there was one small problem: I had no way to identify those beautiful green shoots.
I recognized some of the unwanted sprouts, including nut grass, dandelion, and even poison oak, but I had no clue what the other plants were. No clue at all. To make matters worse, springtime had sprung, and those unidentifiable plants were growing like wildfire.
As I pondered how to handle this budding disaster, I had one of those “come-to-Jesus” moments.
In my mind’s eye, Mamaw Katie turned, smiled at me, and wryly shoved a seed packet onto a tacky stick-turned-stake. Yep, in an instant, I realized my foolishness in not following my grandmother’s tested and true method of identifying newly budding flowers.
But what was I to do? It was one thing to repent of my prideful ignorance, but how was I going to separate the good plants from the bad ones in my precious flower garden?
I couldn’t. At that point, all I could do was let the weeds grow right alongside the flowers. So, for all of spring and on into summer, my flower bed was a messy conglomeration of greenery that surely perplexed and irritated my neighbors and passersby.
But wait! Here comes the part where Jesus taught me way more than I wanted to know about flowers and weeds.
See, life can be a lot like my flower bed, even for us saved and sanctified Christians. Yes, we live our lives totally sold out to Jesus. We teach our children to honor and love Him, and we do everything we know to follow His will and His ways. We don’t just talk the talk; we walk the walk of faith.
Through our daily lives, we plant good seeds, the very best. And we water those seeds with His Word, studying it and standing on it. We carefully tend to our hearts, our homes, and our families because they are not our own. They belong to God and have been bought and paid for with a heavy price.
But somehow, along the way, as our blood-bought seeds grow in the precarious places we have sewn them, the weedy seeds of this dark and dying world begin to sprout right alongside our seeds of faith. And sometimes, it becomes hard to identify which seedlings are which, especially since the world tries to twist and flip the foolproof directions in the Master’s Manual to suit the spaces and places we occupy each day.
So, what’s a believer supposed to do when the weeds of life spring up, right in the middle of our beautiful, anointed lives we are living for the Master?
We do the same thing I did with my little flower garden. We take the good, the bad, and even the downright ugly things of life and let them grow together. Because – believe it or not – God is not confused or surprised by the messiness of our lives.
He knew all along that our best-laid plans (even the ones formed around His Word) would ultimately take us through the deepest, darkest valleys of life. But God made provisions for us before we ever walked the pathway strewn with the worries and woes of life. He will not allow them to overtake us!
In fact, when Jesus shared the Parable of the Weeds in Matthew 13:24-30, He was reminding us even then that we will have some unwanted weeds come into our lives; but we are not to worry or fear or despair. He will walk beside us (even carry us, if need be) through these times of trouble,
Finally, as we see in this biblical story of the good and bad plants growing side-by-side, there will come a day of harvest. And on that day of eternity, there will be no question as to which plants were growing and producing for His kingdom and which were not.
So keep in mind that we all experience the growth of weeds in life. Some are stronger and more persistent than others. A few might even try to choke out our hope and faith, but they can’t. Not as long as we keep our eyes on our heavenly prize.
Verse 30 of this parable assures us of that final destination, “Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”
As for my very own front yard, colorful flowers, annuals and perennials alike, are now blooming all around the tree. It is a bright and beautiful sight to behold, despite the various weeds dispersed throughout this floral display.
And best of all, my flower bed keeps reminding me that despite the weeds springing up around me, all I have to do in order to reach “His barn” is bloom right where I am planted.
