Friday, June 18, 2010

take over

I will come back to the moles another day. Today I want to write about some things that you should never introduce into your yard. Things that sound like a good idea at the time, but later you will wish you had never planted them.

Let's start with Tiger Lillies. Pretty, tall, orange flowers. Beautiful, but very aggressive. Pretty soon your entire yard is a bed of Tiger lilies. Mint. Nothing worse. It smells good, and you will be happy that it fills in the intended space pretty quickly, but then the mint will move on. In a matter of days, it will be all sort of places that you don't want it, and it is very hard to kill. Finally there is Indian grass. Lovely. Wonderful to look at. But again, pretty soon, it is taking over the entire world. Hard to get rid of, hard to kill.

There are many lessons from the yard that transfer well into life. There are some things that you should not allow into your flower beds, and there are some things that you should not allow into your lives.

Hatred and resentment will take over your life. The love of anything that shouldn't be there will also grow out of control. Pretty soon our hearts are full of things that should not be there.

I have pulled out and killed all of the mint. It took two years. I have pulled almost all of the tiger lillies. The rest are not long for this world. The Indian grass, well I have not started on that yet, but it is going as well. When the things that take over are gone, then there is room for the kind of things that should be growing.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This garden analogy is a great one, thanks for putting it like that. I appreciate these parable-like stories. Oh, and Gooseneck Loosetrife is another plant that relentlessly takes over. So plant with care if anyone offers it to you, or better yet. . . . run!

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you have a great sermon topic coming together!

Anonymous said...

Jeff, the wisdom you share in today's blog reminded me of the passage in Hebrews 12:15, where Paul cautions us to beware (be on guard) lest we allow any root of bitterness to spring up in our lives, and cause trouble. It seems like the plants that we don't want to multiply just keep going and going. Much the same with biterness, if we do not allow God to uproot it and help get it out of our lives.