Gardening for God: Weeds

“Other seed fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew up with it and choked it out.”Luke 8:7

Gardeners are familiar with the dynamic described in Luke 8:7, part of Jesus’ parable of the sower. They plant seeds hoping for a crop, those seeds sprout and grow, but so do the weeds. If they’re not pulled they overtake the crop, block out the sun, and so stunt the good plants that there’s no crop.

But gardeners also know there are ways to prevent that. Sheet mulch not only makes it harder for weeds to sprout, but also provides extra nutrients that speeds the crop’s growth, making it less likely that whatever weeds do sprout can overtake them. They also make a conscious, and continuing, effort to look for and pull any weeds that come up.

That same dynamic is present in our lives. We lose our fruitfulness if we let ourselves be surrounded by distractions from God and the things He’d have us do. Those “weeds” take different forms—excessive emphasis on career, status, or material things; too much time spent on hobbies; too much media—but they have a common effect: they divert energy God intends for fruitfulness to other purposes. Instead of producing fruit they produce thorns.

Fortunately, the same measures that work in the garden work in our lives. We can put down the spiritual equivalent of sheet mulch by building time with God—prayer and time in the Word—into our daily routine; they both make it harder for the weeds just described to take root and nourish us for greater fruitfulness. And like a gardener regularly checks for weeds, we can engage in regular self examination to find weeds that need pulled from our lives.

(Images about the benefits of eliminating things that distract us from God/His purposes for us were posted September 18d, October 3a and 14, November 21, December 8, 2004 and February 28 and August 3, 2005.

Images about the importance of exercising the spiritual disciplines were posted September 17a, 18a, and 18d, and October 3a, and 8, 2004 and January 10d and August 27, 2005.

Other images based on gardening themes are collected at Gardening For God.)