Weeds

Proverbs 21:3 (NIV) “To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.” 

Weeds

Now that Spring has arrived after the drenching rains it is time for the weeds to pop up through newly green grass that is calling out for a good mowing. You see, with such a mild winter, the grass really didn’t have a chance to go dormant. With warm weather mixed with a good two or three inches of rain the grass has shown signs of overflowing in greenery.

That greenery has called out to its friends the weeds to show up in abundance. A lot like life, we need to sort through the weed negative influences to get to the good greenery stuff that makes the air fresher and the lawn more beautified.

The thing is, is that the weeds are strangling the lawn and not allowing the grass to surface in many places and so my lawn looks like a patchwork quilt, grass here, weeds there all so suffocating. 

The only good thing is that the weeds are a pretty disguising purple, then there is the over abundance of beautiful sunshiny dandelions that certainly brighten the green. I’ve been reading lately about the health benefits of dandelions. 

While I say that my facebook is riddled with weeds, I can see a little teensy bit of beauty in the woven patchwork of posts. While the negative posts try to suffocate me there ARE means of getting rid of the dastardly demon non-do-gooders. The only health benefits I find in the negativity swell of weeds taking over the place is that I learn a lot of what NOT to be like as a person. 

Weeds are strangling the earth as I write. People are seen clinging to the negative affect of fellow weeds not wanting to be in the greener pastures with the few who are trying to save this world from imminent destruction. You see them every day wallowing in hate, spitting out ugliness, clinging by the root to the destructive weeds that invade the good green earth. Don’t be fooled by the little purple or yellow flowers that they toss out in disguise. 

People use God as a means to an end. Families are fleeing the church in record numbers because of these weeds that put on a pretty show but in reality are destroying the green trying to come up with the rain.

Galatians 6:8 (NIV) “The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”

Are you a sower or a reaper? Are you a shepherd or a sheep? A sower just takes and takes and fills his bag with the hate that has accumulated in his life. The anger at the world and the hate that has accrued over a lifespan have the sower replanting all the weeds he can so that everyone feels suffocated. A shepherd is a leader, one that will guide the lost sheep to safer grounds where they can eat the abundance of good, pure greenery that might be left. 

I might ask, are you a weed? Are you the one feeding the germination of decline that is crippling the world? Are you the spore that is repressing the possibility for new growth? Are you the man or woman who is a follower of animosity as opposed to the leader of replenishment? True colors come out in the actions that are prevalent in your life. If you continue to be a weed, then consider yourself among the community that is slowly depleting the earth of any significant life.

I see you cheering on the lessening of lives. You put people in their place and stand on a high platform with fist raised in enjoying the moans and grumbles that applaud you in your uncaring fashion of spewing YOUR logic.

Spock says, “Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Captain Kirk answers, “Or the one.”

Yeah, I went there. Now let me change it up a bit. “The weeds to the many outweigh the weeds of the few or the One!” You see, the seeds of weeds you feed to the many are outweighing the seeds of the One who is trying to resuscitate the earth. Your hate is depleting the earth of vital growth and until you see that picture as whole and it touches you so immensely you’ll continue in your weed garden. 

Do the many need to hear your hate mongering? Are we now the world that accepts underhanded backstabbing, knife grinding, bait dangling as a means to accomplish a goal? Is this what we’ve come to? 

As I walk through the shadow of the darkness that is Earth, my very last words on my tongue will be of Him who will save me. To the non-believer I say, I would much rather carry the words of love on my breath than the world, filled with hate and destruction on my lips that everyone seems to carry on theirs.

Are you a weed or a seed? Think about that. 

“We do not have to be ashamed of what we are. As sentient beings, we have wonderful backgrounds. These backgrounds may not be particularly enlightened or peaceful or intelligent. Nevertheless, we have soil good enough to cultivate; we can plant anything in it.” 
― Chögyam Trungpa

Lent: Day Ten ~ Spiritual Maturity

Prov. 3:6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

Spiritual Maturity

Well they were new words tossed out at us one Sunday, Spiritual Maturity. What did it mean? To be mature in your Christian journey?

I spoke the other day about being Born Again, and it is just that, you are reborn, your eyes see differently the new world surrounding you. Like a babe in a bassinet, your hands are curled in a tight grip, as you look around you, you see the world in a mobile; a newly spinning environment.

Does being born again mean you just one day wake up and become sinless? No, we are all sinners, even the ones who walk with Christ, our road has as much rubble and thorns as anyone else, we just handle the road a little differently. Like babes in a crib our beginning is being wrapped in love, we are pacified of all the dangers lurking, but they’re there nonetheless.

In my case I was walked through a dark valley with surrounding hills shadowing me. I had no one that supported my new ‘born again’ status but Jesus knew and every step I took He was there on the sidelines cheering me on, or sparing a shoulder to cry on, or carrying me along the sandy shores.

There was a river flowing right through the center of the valley with sandy beaches leading to the water, it became my living water, just as the bible says. I was no longer a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes; I was a toddler getting into everything I could. Climbing stairs where I knew danger lurked. Opening cabinets full of poison. Touching fire and getting burned.

As my adolescent years of being born again were full of mischievous iniquity, I pursued everything that I knew I shouldn’t have. Climbing in dark tunnels, trudging up the side of tree lined hills, only to be knocked down to the waters edge. Always the water, the cleansing healing water.

I waded in the water for a bit feeling the spiritual cleansing on my soul. I was growing but was not fully mature yet so my path, lined with stone, made the footing that much harder to walk on.

Job 19:8 He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my paths.

I could see the path up ahead. It was getting greener and greener and grass was lining the walkway. Church was calling to me but I had to endure more rubble in my road first. Some really big boulders blocked my path and it was up to me to move them out of the way, climb over them, or allow them to hinder my goal of finding a pasture filled with wildflowers and sheep.

Even in my darkened days, there was a Light shining as bright as the morning star, warming my body and filling me with hope that there was a pasture, waiting just for me up ahead.

I think I was on my thirty seventh mile of walking barefoot that I saw it, singing out to me and calling like a bird in a tree, it sang a beautiful melody and moved me on to maturity I had never known.

I was now feeling a Spiritual Maturity wrapping around me. I was clothed, I had shoes now that made the path more bearable. Had I reached my destination? No, not yet. More walking but now my hand was full of seeds. I scattered the seeds along the path so anyone coming behind me on their path would see, see the beauty that they know is up ahead.

When they say the grass is always greener on the other side, they weren’t kidding. I saw a lush pasture; every blade of grass had its own song that sung in the morning dew. Filled with wildflowers the song became an orchestra of melody that chimed from the ground and kissed the sky good morning.

Day after day this song in the field lightened the walk. I saw sheep gathered on the hill grazing, talking about the beauty that lay in this pasture. A layer of wool adorned the hill, but lo, behold, a wolf, looking very much like a sheep, lashed out; snarling with teeth exposed, he was moving in for the kill.  I sprinted forward to put some kind of fear into the wolf and keep the sheep safe, protected in this beautiful land.

SILENCE

That’s what fills the air when hatred seeps in among the well-fed sheep. He looked like all the others and that is why the sheep didn’t fear him, but the closer he got to them, the lure of his instinctive wiles made him out to be just what he was, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

To protect the sheep, I knew I’d need a staff, to help me guide them to safety. With a rod in my right hand, the Word in my left, clothed in beautiful raiment and sandals that sometimes allowed my toes to feel the grass, I was mature enough to know my place in the valley. I was now at the new heights of… Spiritual Maturity.

Pss. 25:10 All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies.

God’s Promise:

Isa. 42:16 And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.