Is it just me or do lots of people have difficulty recognising weeds in their garden. Today I noticed a rather well nourished and healthily growing plant occupying a small clearing in our back garden. What alerted me to this specimen was that all the other plants in the vicinity are of the bush type or at least tree like in their growth patterns and also that there is nowhere in my memory that I remember planting it in that location. However doubts have continued to cross my mind all afternoon because I wasn't solely responsible for the planting out of the area a few years ago and it looks almost too nice to be a weed. I have sought advice from other non gardeners in the family but she says she is not sure either. Meantime it continues to flourish in shadow of a rather large 'yucca' tree and within spitting distance of a slow growing little rose little that is less bush and more a collection of thorny stems at present and also a white blooming magnolia tree, though at present neither seems particularly worried by the competitor which lies half way between both of them. I should also point out that because individual spitting distances can vary somewhat, the length in question would be that produced by a toddler expelling saliva for the first time, if you get my drift!Anyway, today was weeding day, when all those plants that do not hold a certificate of residence in our garden, are weeded out and told to find another home. Some have no manners at all and even though I evicted whole families of nettles, docks, goose grass and thistles, I just know that some of their relatives will be breaking and entering before the summer has gone. And when I make them homeless, I can guarantee that I won't be wiping away any tears of sympathy. Indeed there should be something like a visa for weeds so that they can't enter unless they have special permission from a higher authority, i.e. me! But it made me start to think today, just what a plant has to do to become a weed. Clearly it must have some nuisance value and mustn't have been planted by the gardener and if I'm not mistaken, most weeds seem to be rather aggressive in their growth and also rather innovative. Some of them are unsightly but there are many that produce nice, colourful flowers such as the dandelion and daisy, two which could be easily spotted in any garden this year. Among cereal plants, they definitely affect the quality of the crop, if not removed and there are more than a few that just cause annoyance by their thorns, prickles or stings. But even a weed like the dock leaf has some value in that mum and dad would always have rubbed it on the site of a nettle sting to ease the pain and the old nettle was on more than one occasion used in champ as a substitute for scallions. But I guess it's the fact that the weeds in my garden are freeloading the nutrients, the sunlight and the water that is needed by all the other plants that should be there. That's what makes them a real headache, for the truth is that a weed is only a weed when it's in the wrong place. But I'm still puzzled why the Scots have a thistle for an emblem!
In the time of Adam and Eve, there is no evidence that any plant was considered to be a weed , but after their fall and as God banished them from the garden, he said to Adam, 'Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you,and you will eat the plants of the field.' So while God gave us many good plants to enjoy visually and for food, as a result of sin entering the world, he allowed weeds to enter too as a reminder of our fallen state. Jesus used this idea of weeds when he told the parable of the sower for He said, 'Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants' and in His explanation He reminds His followers 'The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.'
What is competing for the Son in our lives. It might be as attractive as the flower on some of our weeds but we can be pretty sure that, more than just being an annoyance, it will definitely want to choke our faith, for the one who plants such aggressive weeds in our lives in none other than the fallen angel himself. Today I got rid of all the weeds that I could see but I'm quite prepared to keep going back and removing others that take root in the future. I pray that God will help me to be just as diligent in my walk with Him.
