Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Weeds revisited

For the sake of the couple of people who commented on "Weeds" (thank you!), I'm going to put in my two or three cents.

The two suggestions I received were to (a) leave it to the gardener and (b) Round-Up (tm). Interestingly enough, I considered mentioning both possibilities when I originally wrote the post, almost in the same words.

Now, scripture is abundantly clear that I am the gardener. I don't own this yard. Even when I thought I did, and treated it like I did, I didn't. I am a steward, not a landowner. Now, I know the Landowner, and have come to know His benificience in allowing me a great deal of freedom in tending the yard. But it's His land, and He is counting on me to care for the garden.

He is also abundantly available for every resource I need to care for the yard. He has made it clear that He will provide any tool, any fertilizer, any seed, all kinds of instruction, and even personal assistance for the care of this garden. He wants His garden to be fruitful.

There are rules for its use, of course. There are some seeds that I am never to plant, because the Landowner knows that they can easily overtake the garden. There are seasons in which I should not plant so the soil can rest and receive nourishment. And most of all, I should never forget that the garden belongs to the Landowner and not to me.

The land was cleared when it was purchased. But the seeds of weeds can blow in from other fields. It falls to me (with the Landowner's abundant assistance and resource) to continue to care for the land, constantly and joyfully presenting it to Him, rejoicing with Him in its fruit.

Round-Up (tm) was going to be a little stinger on the end of the "Weeds" post. But if you read the label, you realize that where you use it, nothing's going to grow for several months. It gets the weeds out of the in the sidewalk really well. But if you want fruit, you'd better use other means. Jesus' is not Round-Up.

Thanks for the comments. I hope to be posting more often soon.