Weeds

I had yard work chores in my Dad’s yard as I was growing up. But, I did not know the responsibility of my own yard until I was pastoring my first church and we were given a parsonage to live in. I soon found out that there was more to taking care of a yard than just mowing the grass.

One year I had a great crop of weeds. They were prickly and tall with a tough stem. I first tried to handle them like everything else in the yard. I mowed them all down. The weeds, however, grew much faster than the grass and mowing also seemed to encourage them to multiply.

As my problem grew so did my determination. I grabbed a bucket and I pulled them all out. Well, I pulled anyway. Some of them came out roots and all but most of them only came out level with the hard soil. Immediately after the next rain they were back with a vengeance and had multiplied again. They also looked taller as if taunting me with my failure.

I decided to try again. This time I grabbed a hand spade with my bucket. The soil was softer because of the rain. I meticulously removed each weed with the root and any weed that broke off I used the spade and dug out the root.

I actually had a neighbor who drove by and rolled down the window to tell me that will still never work. Every yard in the neighborhood had the same problem and we were just going to have to wait until winter and used weed and feed then, in her opinion.

To everyone’s surprise, including my own, the weeds stayed gone this time. Before the next spring I followed advice and used a high quality fertilizer. That year I had the best yard on the block. I also used the same fertilizer on the Churchyard and saw the same result there.

Remembering that experience always reminds me of the warning in Hebrew 12:14-15: “Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness – without it no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springs up, causing trouble and by it, defiling many” God’s word is like that spade, digging out the root of bitterness. Pursuing a course that is opposite of peace produces a root of bitterness that leads to trouble. Peace and holiness go together. Peace and holiness both have to be pursued. You cannot have one without the other.

An unwanted root has to be removed completely or it will continue to grow back and multiply. The key to peace is forgiveness, which is also the key to removing the root of bitterness. Forgiveness should be followed up with holiness to keep the root from returning later. Peace, forgiveness, and holiness are personal pursuits that are part of a healthy spiritual life of a Christian. We cannot do this by ourselves but we can do all things through Christ.
Bro. Robin