[A couple of notes: 1. I’m not a scientist or biologist. You’ll want to read content from people who have a broad knowledge of weeds to more fully inform your gardening decisions and practices. 2. As I prepared this article I came to realize that the combined words of “weed seed” have now become widely used in the burgeoning marijuana market (unfortunate in my opinion). In this article I am NOT talking about that kind of weed seed.]
If my garden vegetables grew as well as all the crabgrass I’ve pulled out of gardens over the years I would considered myself an extremely successful gardener.
I’ve read that part of the Bible in Genesis (yep that first book in the Bible that sets the stage for all of life’s journey) where God is rhetorically asking Cain (“the tiller of soil” – the gardener) where his brother Abel (the “keeper of sheep”) is. Just a bit earlier Cain said to his brother, “hey, come take a walk with me in the field where I work – check out my pretty garden”.
And then – maybe it was among the tomatoes or perhaps it was in the pumpkin patch, Cain killed Abel because he was jealous and bitter. Who knows what was going on in his mind. All we know is that God called him out and told him pretty straight, “You refuse to do what’s right, you’re living in sin.”
Leave it to God to not mince words and then tell all of us the consequences. He said to Cain, “Now you are cursed. No longer will the ground yield good crops for you, no matter how hard you work!”
No wonder today the idiom ‘raising Cain’ is used to describe angry, disturbing, unrestrained behavior that causes a lot of trouble. Given the amount of trouble I’ve had with weeds over the years, I think Cain really messed it up big time for all of us.
WEED SEED THAT JUST WON’T STOP
G.E. Welbaum in Encyclopedia of Applied Plant Sciences and a sciencedirect.com article says, “Seed production and dispersal are particularly important for plants that are annual weeds. Initial weed infestation is dependent on seed invasion but continued survival requires on site seed production. Weed seed populations are dynamic and are affected by weather, seed predators and cultivation practices. An understanding of weed seed populations is important as this governs how weeds are managed over a period of time.”
To me that means that once a lot of weed seed gets in my garden dirt it keeps on reproducing very easily unless I steward my piece of the earth and do it really well. According to Lorin Nielsen in Epicgardening.com crabgrass is opportunistic. It self-seeds easily and can produce up to 150,000 seeds per plant during its growing season. At that rate, I’d say ‘opportunistic’ is an understatement.
Creation care is hard work. Growing a really good garden with limited weeds is even harder!
COME TEND THE SOIL OF MY SOUL
So, what’s the spiritual lesson here? Every springtime gives us a new opportunity to also be a little opportunistic. Early in the spring we’re at an advantage that winter has killed at least some of that growth – it’s dead and gone with the winter! We can plant seeds and seedlings (the good and desirable gifts from God). If we have and continue to amend the soil it can be healthy and fertile – just right for vegetables and flowers to reach toward the light and grow strong.
It’s magical but it’s far from magic. Good, healthy, living dirt that is free of weed seed happens when it is nurtured, filled with nutrients and regularly tended. It is the attention to the tending that we must desire. We can’t just plant, we have to want to know the soil.
In like fashion we can’t expect our spirits to produce and celebrate the abundance God intends for us unless we long for, seek and allow God to work out all the weed seed in us.
Let’s not just pray #iwantgod but daily live a life that demonstrates it. This is how we experience the potential of spiritual soil that has truly been freed from weed seed. When we earnestly desire for God to tend the soil of our soul then in confidence we can say like a garden I will grow. (Watch the Chris Renzema lyric video below and take a moment to let God speak to you about what you’ve just read.)
Grow deep in Christ,
Brad Bloom, Publisher
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