Weeds, the Fall and More

So today is a collection of a few scattered thoughts I've had while working around my garden and yard.  Right now with the rain we've been having my garden is looking pretty good.  I'll have to take some pics and upload them.  My potatoes are thriving, my beans are coming up, lettuce almost ready, carrots coming up sunflowers growing and everything else looking good.

With taking care of my garden and yard I've been pulling up weeds.  I started thinking about the significance of weeds as pertains to my walk with Christ.  My thoughts came to Matthew 13:24-30 and the Parable of the Weeds.  In the story Jesus talks about the Kingdom being a place where the wheat and weeds grow together for a time.  The servants ask if they should separate them.  The owner instructs to allow them to grow together and separate them at the harvest.  Jesus goes on the explain the parable in verses 36-43.  As I was pulling weeds I was thinking about people in my life who right now at least appear to be weeds.  So I prayed for the weeds that I know that they may be shown to be wheat.

Another random thought I had came about because of the lovely poison ivy now irritating my fingers.  Why do we have things like poison ivy?  It's similar to questions I've asked about the purpose of mosquitoes or other parts of creation that seem to just be a nuisance.  Perhaps poison ivy does serve some good purpose.  I sure would like to know what it is.  For right now it's a painful reminder of the Fall.  The event and events that make up the Fall are all around.  I think of poison ivy as something that's not right; as part of creation that is fallen in its purpose.  We see people around the world torn apart from God and from each other as a result of the Fall.  People hurting, creation groaning waiting for the Fall to be permanently made right.  The poison ivy is reminding me of my own fallenness.  I say "event and events" because at times we like to blame Adam for humanities fallenness.  But I have to admit my compliance with Adam's decision to turn from God every time I turn away from God myself.

I'd like to think that gardening is all great.  But the reality is that there are hard things to deal with in the garden.  There are weeds that will be destroyed, so I pray for the weeds hoping they might turn out to be something different.  And there's poison ivy reminding me that all is not right yet with Creation or with my own relationship with Christ.