Ever since the fall of man, we gardeners have had to do battle with the weeds. After Adam’s sin, God said to him, “Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.†Before the fall, evidently no thorns or thistles grew, and their double-first cousins, the weeds, were also missing. After the fall, the weeds began proliferating and torturing us gardeners as just reward for our sin. We had it coming, but that still doesn’t make our warfare with the weeds any more pleasant.
As I do daily hand-to-hand combat with the weeds, I have observed that weeds always attack a garden at its weakest point. They are always looking for a chink in the armor—some vulnerable spot. Leith Anderson said that when he was putting in his lawn at his new house, he asked an expert about what he ought to do about all of the weeds. The man said, “Don’t worry about getting rid of the weeds. Just concentrate on growing grass.†That’s the way life works. The fuller we fill life with the presence of God, the fewer places there are for the weeds to grow. If there is some place in your life where you are neglecting to put something strong and positive, you leave yourself open to the invasion of sin.
I have also observed that one of the ways weeds get a foothold in a vegetable garden or a flowerbed is by the old trick of masquerade. When your plants are small and just getting started, weeds that look almost exactly like the good plants begin growing right in the midst of them. If you’re not careful, you will water and feed the weeds along with the plants you’re trying to encourage.
That’s the way sin works in our lives. Satan is the master of the masquerade. He can even present himself as an angel of light. Be on the lookout for sin. Don’t be fooled by the way it masquerades itself as something positive and good.
Something else I have noticed about weeds is that they get just as close as possible to the good plants. They will get so close that they are hard to see and even harder to dislodge without harming the good plant. Jesus pointed out this problem in his parable about the wheat and the tares. He said that pulling up the tares dislodged a lot of good wheat. You often have to use a kind of surgical precision in removing sin from your life without causing a lot of collateral damage.
Another trick that weeds use is to grow as fast as possible. They know that they are universally hated so they try to grow to maturity with breakneck speed before you spot them and pull them up. That’s the way sin works. It often grows with astounding speed to overwhelm us before we get it under control.
Numerous experiments have shown that plants grow better if you speak to them gently and kindly. I think I’ll try the opposite approach. This week I plan to go out and yell at the weeds!
