Flowers and Weeds, Wheat and Tares

Some years back I had decided I wanted to get a little bit into gardening.  It was spring and I had noticed that there was some green sprouting up, but I had no idea what was weeds and what was flowers.  And since neither of my folks knew anything about that particular subject I called upon my friend Lenny.  Lenny is a good ol’ country boy from Texas who grew up on a farm, and knew a lot about gardening and building stuff.  Everything from cars to computers.

When Lenny got to my house he walked the premises with me and pointed out different plants.  He knew them all by name.  Told me what was weeds, and what was flowers.  He made suggestions on what trees and bushes to trim back and what to pull out.  It would be a lot of work and he suggested I do a little bit at a time so that I wouldn't get overwhelmed.  He also informed me that some of the plants were seasonal and I would have different plants blooming in different times of the year.

The next few weeks on my days off I spent my free time trimming bushes, digging up weeds, and pulling down vines.  My house was on a corner so the yard was massive and it was some serious hard work.  The yard looked great but there was one small corner near the back porch that I didn't touch.  By the time I had got to that I had hit my wall and figured that no one would really see it besides my family anyway. 

Everything was looking great, that is until the fall had rolled around.  As the leaves started to change and I looked at my yard I realized my error.  You see there are these cool looking, golden yellow flowers that only bloom during the fall.  But during the Spring and Summer their leaves resemble weeds, and because I had an untrained eye, I pulled up and threw away something beautiful.  When other plants started to die, these started to bloom.  So by the time fall hit, my front yard was looking quite tattered and pitiful, but in the back, the area where I hadn't touched, that part was full, thick, and lush with life.  As I surveyed my debacle, the parable of the Wheat and the Tare made more sense to me.

In Matthew 13:30 in regards to the wheat and tares Jesus said to

 “Let both grow together until the harvest:” 

You see there are a lot of times where we want to write people off because they aren't producing, or showing signs of producing when WE think that they should producing.  And because they aren't producing, we want to write them off and cast them aside.  Throwing away perfectly good people who will have the ability to not only feed other people, but produce others just like them.  As saints our job is to continue to teach, pray, and love on people.  That doesn't mean you don’t rebuke, chastise, or correct people when they do wrong.  If you don’t love someone enough to address a fault, you don’t love that person at all.  But when you throw people aside, you never know what that person might be to the Body of Christ.  Just like those golden flowers, they may be the very ones to stand against the harshest climate, because that was the way that God made them.