Weeds to Roses

Don't you sometimes wish you could be something more? Dream of accomplishing something, being famous...just so you aren't only a wisp of mist in the passage of time. Even to be just a blip on the radar of the world for a moment seems better than to never amount to something. But who are we really trying to impress?
If our goal is to meet some worldy objective, we can not flourish in God's garden. We would be a weed - a plant in the wrong place. God has the wonderful and unique ability to transplant us - He can turn a weed into a rose.
Last night at Wednesday Bible study we studied a great couple, Abraham and Sarah. Some of the things we discussed were the tremendous failings of these two people. Yet they are marked down as wonderful examples to follow. They provide a wonderful example of how God can use us in spite of our failings and weaknesses.
God's guiding of us makes me think of playing with an insect. Ever tried to get an insect to walk along a blade of grass, or from hand to hand so it won't crawl up your sleeve? It'll get off the path you want it to walk, and you just have to patiently coax it back where you want it. We frequently get off the path God wants us to walk, we fail in following His will, and He just brings us back.
We fail, God succeeds. We are weak, He is strong. We are the sheep, He is our Shepherd. Out of the ashes, God brings a complete and precious work. We may stumble into the fires of our sins, and yet God works all things together for good to them that love Him, to bring out of that fire a more purified gold. What God has started He will finish -- in spite of us. He still chooses to use us! What a wonderful savior is Jesus our Lord!

My Favorite Weed

Had to return to weeds. Sorry, it was bugging the 'Monk' side of me. I've got one weed that is growing very fast. It seems to always be in bloom. Yes, OK, you got me. It's my daughter. She's such a gem. She's just turned three and I've gotten to witness

some stuff that's just neato. Usually my wife gets the honor of seeing all the funny stuff, first times, etc.. A few nights ago during dinner we had some cantaloupe pieces that we were holding onto as a treat if she finished the apparently less desirable dinner. There were six pieces left, and while trying to endure the wait for her to finish her dinner, I ate one. She knew there were six, and she made the statement that now there were only five pieces left! So I pretended to eat each of the other pieces over the next few minutes and sat amazed as she correctly subtracted the pieces I 'ate' from the total that remained! Cool. I may be biased, but I'm sure most would agree she's a smart cookie to be doing this at 3. So we practiced subtraction (and addition as I returned the uneaten pieces) and she did very well as we introduced her to the concepts of minus and plus. Two nights ago she made sandwiches for the first time - very nearly by herself. I was hungry and asked if she'd like to make me a peanut butter & honey sandwich. Her eyes lit up and she said, "Sure!" -- and off she went and started collecting what she needed. Of course I had to help her get some stuff like bread off the top shelf of the fridge, but once she was all set up she smeared PB on about 1/4 of one slice of bread, a puddle of honey on the other, slapped 'em together and pre-masticulated the sandwich with a (plastic) knife in her attempt to cut it into 4 pieces for me, like we do for her. It was soooo cute. We made three sandwiches together and shared them all. Really, although she grows like a weed, she isn't one at all. She's a wonderful flower in our garden, a plant in the right place at the right time.

Immune to thermodynamics!

Sadly, this is going to be my first weedless entry. 

Yesterday I missed out on a great opportunity to witness to our daughter's doctor. While he was giving her the annual exam, he commented that the backs of her arms were rough, and told us it was called hyper keratosis, specifically keratosis pilaris. He always gives us interesting tidbits of info, and in this case he explained that keratin is a substance our skin produces as waterproofing. He pointed out that you can't have keratosis on the palms or soles, our skin doesn't produce keratin there because it is slippery and we wouldn't be able to grip things when we were wet. He attributed this feature of the human body as something mother nature has given us. Really, we can chalk another fascinating piece of info up as something else God in His infinite wisdom designed into our bodies. 

Hang on for the train ride of thought! 

The detail and perfection with which God created us made me think of the love He has for us. If any one of us invests great time and attention to detail into something we do, we take great pride in it. We love the work that we do that demonstrates our capabilities. Not only that, but consider that Genesis says God created us in His image! Every normal parent loves their children tremendously. Not only from all that we do to form them into the adults they will become, but because a piece of us is in them. They are in the image of their parents - their looks, actions, character and peculiarities are direct products of the parents. 

Mother nature could never achieve something as complex as the human body. What about entropy and the second law of thermodynamics? If everything left to itself tends to degenerate, how can mother nature produce anything useful at all? (In preparatory reading for this blog I learned that what I was taught about thermodynamics is considered outdated now since it lent itself too well to creationists, and rather than degenerate it is explained as a balancing of potential. This blog isn't intended to argue these points....) 

Oh how deep the love of God! That He would create us in His image, invest His wisdom in the details of our composition, give us freedom of choice, pay the price for the wrong choices we make, and offer us an eternity with Him! How can we not love Him back? With all that God is, all that He does...it may seem like a funny question. Yet when I examine myself, I find my love for God is shallow, pathetic, weak, and unworthy - and still He loves me. 

One of the weakest links in Christianity these days is our witness to others. We are convinced that it is too scary to share our faith, even in a place as free as this country. Sure, our ability to share our beliefs is slipping away - but we aren't doing anything about it! And we aren't doubling our efforts to share the gospel while we still can. If we really love God, wouldn't we share Him with others? We tell our friends about our favorites restaurants, computer games, latest fashion or craze, news, sports,...the list goes on endlessly. And we only like those things. But we won't share our faith. 

It is so great to know that no matter how the second law of thermodynamics affects our lives, nature, or even our walk with God it will never affect His love for us. 

 *The End* 

 P.S. For those who are totally lost... Entropy can be explained as balance. ie. The entropy of our lives was disrupted when our child was born. The laws of thermodynamics, among other things, state that when things are left to themselves, they tend towards maximum entropy (or balance). This is achieved by an equalization of potential - something with more energy loses that energy to something with less. ie. A cup of coffee that is hot and is left in a cooler room will dissipate that energy to the room. Since this is a balancing of energy, it usually is perceived as a degeneration of items with higher potential. It's more like leveling of uneven terrain. Since anything worth noticing can be perceived as something of higher potential, it will eventually lose that potential. Evolution flies in the face of these laws, since anything that develops would also un-develop as potential is equalized.

Self-healing Grass

We have this...stuff...in our yard. They call it self-healing grass. As we are renters, you can imagine the multitude of previous renters that have each felt bad about the pathetic yard at our house, the patchy grass, the overgrown bushes that don't look like they have thorns but secretly bear two-inch spikes.... Each new renter, hacking at the plants that have become weeds, ripping out the ones that have converted to long-dead twiggotry...and invariably planting a new variety of grass to fill in the patches caused by the combination of 110 degree summers and an exhausted sprinkler system. 

One year, someone got sick of the constant drudgery and had the FANTASTIC idea to plant self-healing grass and hoped it would never be an issue again. HA HA ha ha. Boy did they soooo have the last laugh. For those of you who haven't had the joy of using this ingenious little plant...it's a NUISANCE!! Don't ever, ever buy it. For those of you who have had the pleasure, 'nuff said. You know of what I speak. It doesn't have an inkling where the grass is supposed to end and the flowerbed or driveway begins. It's aim is to conquer all. It grows like a thin, very low-lying vine, and every few inches places roots - the pulling of which is comparable to removing nails from wood with your fingertips. It grows everywhere. (I'm not trying to complain. I've added my own new variety of bushy fat-bladed green grass that is nice and thick and NOT self-healing. It almost seems to drown out the half of the yard that is clover. ) 

Without action, we too tend to grow in any direction we please. If left to ourselves, we can grow well outside the boundaries that God has planned for us. There are several resources available to us as Christians to help us mind our boundaries, such as these examples:

* The Word of God is a wonderful, absolute marker of bounds we should live our lives inside.

* Time spent talking with and hearing from God is an essential element of our direction.

* The local church provides excellent opportunities of growth that are within God's will.

* Not only does God lead us through the preacher and his preaching, it is a place to establish friendships that will support us and help us grow more like Christ.

When we disregard our boundaries we put down roots every so often in places that we shouldn't, and the effort that we should be spending filling the holes in God's garden where we are needed is wasted outside His will. When the Gardener comes and finds us He redirects us, as it were. Most of the time it hurts! The more set we become, the more roots we place, the more it hurts when He tears up the parts of our lives that are out of His will.

James 1:13-17 says, "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

Wow! How can we know if the hardships that come to us are an attack by Satan, chastisement from God, or His leading us to go elsewhere?

We need to look at where we are growing and planting our roots. Are we minding the boundaries so clearly set before us or are we snaking tendrils of interest into the world around us? If we're out-of-bounds, we've brought the hardship on ourselves! These verses clearly indicate that sin is something we do fine all by ourselves. The pain we feel comes as a result of where we are - both as a natural consequence and from God's chastisement if we are His child.

If we examine ourselves and find that we are still in the yard where we should be and are minding our boundary markers, it may be that Satan is seeking to drive us out of God's will. However, I don't believe that God would allow hardship in our lives to cause us to transplant to another area of the yard. Trials come from God if we are outside His will and from Satan if we are in God's will. If we are growing on the edge of the yard trying to keep a foot in both worlds, it may be possible to feel hardship from both sides, and we'd need to plant ourselves squarely in God's will.

The last verse though is a reminder of what we read in many other places of the Bible - God IS good. If we are in His will and it's time to move, He will make the way open - not by inducing pain to drive us one way or the other, but by showing His goodness in the way we should go. You could say He would fertilize the ground where we should be.

May we be like self-healing grass that grows and spreads out as fully as possible within the boundaries of God's will.

Dead Man Walking

Heard that before, haven't you? Hopefully not in the context it comes from! "Dead man walking" is a phrase that comes from death row. When an inmate is being taken away for execution, they are often referred to as dead men walking. They walk still, yet their fate is certain at this point. The path they walk now is sure. 

 There was One who while innocent, lived His life as a Dead Man Walking. He came to earth knowing He would die, knowing why, when, how. It was as sure as the fate of a convicted felon ambulating down the corridor for his last time. But we were the convicts, He the Judge, and He taking our place to free us.

Aren't we to live our lives as 'dead men walking?' Not in a morbid, depressed manner. As a Christian, I know my fate! The price has been paid! While my body will die some day, my spirit will live on in God's presence eternally! I have nothing to fear, only joy to feel about the prospect of death some day. 

Then how are we to be 'dead men walking?' As a recipient of God's free gift of salvation, I am free from the chains of sin. This doesn't mean I no longer sin -- it means I'm no longer bound to sin. I don't have to. I can choose not to. The Bible refers to it as being "dead to sin." A dead person cannot do much of anything, much less sin. We are to live our lives as if we were dead as far as sin is concerned. 

Another manner in which we can live as 'dead men walking' is by being aware of our mortality. A common mantra is to "Live each day to the fullest." Those who hear from a doctor that they are terminal cases and have a certain number of months left to live tend to spend those last few months differently from the way they lived previously. That's the way every day should be for us already! God may take us home at any time. Live each day to the fullest -- for Him!

A Lesson in Weed

I could never claim that weeding is fun, however I still find aspects of it enjoyable. Weeding is a good way to get alone. Try as you might, it isn't easy to get folks around you to help. When was the last time you heard someone say, "Hey! Let's all go weed for a couple hours! It'll be a blast!" Yeah right. Weeding is to me one of the ultimate ways to get time to think, and since they grow in such abundance, there is lots of time to mull things over. 

 Today the weeds had a lesson for me. There's some swamp grass under one of our windows that was designed (Yes, designed - evolution is not smart enough to make this plant!) to never be eradicated. The tiniest piece of root left behind...and it'll all grow back. It's also very brittle, to ensure that root gets left behind. A few months ago I did my best to chase down the roots and get it all out, as Round-Up wasn't touching it. I ended up quite dirty with a lot of roots and a big hole in the ground. Needless to say, I must've missed some. It was growing up again within a week. 

New tactic -- just let it grow! Let's see how big it gets! This week it hit the limit. Around 5 feet tall and just going to seed. Since I don't want MORE of this stuff, I figured I better yank it again before those seeds got around. I found today that pulling a single stalk of this stuff out would undoubtedly leave the roots behind as it would snap off. However, if I grabbed a large cluster of stalks, I could pull up a vast quantity of dirt and (nearly) all the roots! I won't dare to say I've got it all - I know better now. 

Some of our weeds pull better individually, and these...are best left to grow and be yanked together. This very simple observation made me think about the old motto, "United we stand, divided we fall." In this case, untrue. Why? I came up with a couple reasons. As I thought about it I realized that standing together on the wrong foundation won't keep you from being wrong. No matter how many people agree together to do or believe something wrong won't make it right, and won't keep them from judgement some day. The weeds were in soft dirt that readily gave way when force was applied. The foundation is important. 

Where do we stand? The second realization was that you can't succeed if you aren't in God's will. Performing the role of gardener could be seen as a type, similar to how God works in our lives. Even the weeds that have a strong foundation can't win if the gardener doesn't want them there. No matter our foundation, it is vital for us to be in God's will to succeed. Where are we planted? I left those weeds there to grow for quite some time so they'd be easier to remove when the time was right. Inaction on God's part in our lives is not a good thing, nor is it indicative of a lack of His existence. 

Grow well, grow strong, grow with a good foundation, grow, grow in the place God has for you.

Atypical First

So, of course. All want their own...uniqueness. Yet at the same time we strive to impress those around us, often in vain. I'm not a blogger, or a 'journalist' or any such thing. I'm not likely to post much. But I know if you've read this far you want to see what I think, how much I think, or if I even think at all. 

No, Weed Thought is not about a chemical state of mind or a certain 7-point leaf in which so many of our society these days seek refuge in. This is simply about the way I think. My thoughts are like weeds. My thoughts are scattered, and move quickly between subjects far and wide, navigating through paths and connections that, frankly, are hard to imagine. How they get from one place to another is usually a mystery. Often they seem to pop up out of nowhere, and unlike weeds, tend to disappear if not attended to.  

One of my first 'real' jobs involved working at a small, privately owned plant nursery. The owner told me something that has stuck with me ever since, and although many have heard it, it was the first time I had. He told me that a weed was just a plant in the wrong place. Somehow it made weeding a little less tedious to think of the weeds as plants instead of nature out to get me with the worst she could conjure. 

I've never been interested in blogging, per se. But sometimes I find my 'weeds' are merely in the wrong place, at the wrong time. I hope if I take the time to reveal the weeds to others, they may become the plants they intended to be all along.