Daily Journal: 13 November

Weeds Amongst

Your Flowers

Tending a garden is ongoing work. It continues to grow, which is what we want, but it never grows exactly how we want it to. There are always weeds that need pulling out. There is transplanting needed because of seed dropped by birds or new shoots that spring up from tubers growing underground. There is always pruning and rubbish to be cleared. There is watering and feeding needed to increase productivity and health.

A cultivated garden doesn’t grow all by itself. It needs constant attention.

Our lives are like that too. When I read the parable of the weeds in Matthew 13:24-30, I can take a lesson from the planting of good seed a farmer sows in a field and the weeds that an enemy sneaks in to sabotage the field with.

Matthew 13:27-28 (NIV)

“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

When we are working in God’s garden, we are the good seed. The weeds that grow up amongst the good we do are the people the evil one sends to sabotage the good work we do. How do we deal with the weeds?

Matthew 13: 28-30 (NIV)

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest.

Life isn’t always pleasant when our best efforts in the garden gets sabotaged by thorns and prickles and messy weeds. Sometimes we can become bogged down, overlooked, belittled, or weakened by the work of the enemy. But remember, we are a planting of the Lord that He might be glorified.

Isaiah 61:3 (NIV)

They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendour.

When there are weeds amongst your flowers, remember to keep your root system strong, to keep standing in righteousness and peace, and let the Lord deal with the intrusion of thistles. When you look to Him to direct you, you will remain, His work will be accomplished, the garden will flourish and the harvest will be plentiful.

Isaiah 61:10-11 (NIV)

I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.