Weed control is a fact of life if you own a yard, a garden, landscape beds and even potted plants outdoors.
They make this product called Roundup that you can spray on weeds anywhere and it kills them. Well, it kills everything.
Walking in my neighborhood, I know the rookie yard owners because their green lawn is spotted with brown, dead, round patches where they sprayed weeds with Roundup.
It killed the weeds, and the grass, too!
So you learn to buy lawn weed killer that actually doesn’t kill your grass. But read the label carefully because it may kill certain types of grass like Bermuda or Zoysia. Even if it’s safe for your lawn, it’s poisonous and not really safe for humans.
There’s another option for weed control, however, rather than killing everything off or even killing just weeds.
The best weed control is a healthy lawn. Taking care of it means more green grass and fewer weeds, a stronger lawn without weak spots where seeds of weeds can germinate.
Jesus tells the parable of the weeds and the wheat, representing unbelievers and believers. They grow next to each other, and in the parable Jesus teaches that’s the way it is. After all, he wants unbelievers to become believers, doesn’t he?
So in God’s weed control, don’t spray the Roundup weed killer of condemnation and alienation all over the place trying to eradicate unbelievers, wickedness and evil. In the process, it can be deadly to us believers as much as it is deadly to the unbelieving weeds.
Instead, let’s be healthy and growing as a group of believers. Instead of pushing unchurched and ungodly people away, condemning their wickedness and complaining about their terrible, ungodly decisions and behaviors, Jesus wants us to grow in this world together with them, rub elbows with them, show them the joys of God’s kingdom.
In God’s miraculous work they can become part of the lawn, too. New, growing grass. “Do you want us to go and pull them up?” the servants in Jesus’ parable ask the owner of the field about the weeds growing among the wheat. He answered, “No, because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them” (Matthew 13:28,29).
Let’s make our churches growing, vibrant places of strong faith and love. Let’s manicure and manage our families as well as we manage financial portfolios and weekly deadlines. Let’s present our Christian lives to others as joyful, satisfied, and full of Jesus’ life.
That is God’s weed control.
PRAYER: Dear Jesus, you came to this earth and rubbed elbows with us for a while. Not just with good people, but bad people, wicked people, unbelievers. Lead me to interact with unbelievers with your grace, wisdom and love. Amen.
FURTHER MEDITATION: Read Luke 9:53-55. What does this teach us about Jesus’ expectations for us on his mission?