When God Begins Pulling Out Weeds

Suggested Reading: Luke 8:4-15

“Roger” was a man who was brought up in the church. He committed his life to Christ and was even planning on being a minister. But somewhere along the way, other concerns began crowding out his walk with Christ. Eventually, he ended up doing drugs, surviving multiple divorces, taking advantage of his elderly grandparents, and losing the only Bible he’d managed to hold onto. Roger spent more than two decades wandering out on his own, his relationship with God all but forgotten amidst the pleasures, worries and concerns that crowded out the word of God in his life.

Roger epitomized the third kind of soil that Jesus described in the Parable of the Sower.  As the farmer scattered the word of God, some seeds fell along the path and were picked up and carried off by birds. Other seeds fell on rocky places and sprung up quickly but never really grew roots and died in the heat of the sun. But the third place where seeds fell was among the thorns, which choked them and kept them from growing like the seeds which fell on good soil. When Jesus explained the parable to his disciples, he explained, The seeds that fell among the thorns represent those who hear the message, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the cares and riches and pleasures of this life. And so they never grow into maturity (Luke 8:14, NLT).

The seeds that fell among the thorns have always fascinated me because they didn’t die like the seeds that fell on the first two types of ground and because, as I look at my own life, I see how easily I am distracted by the worries and pleasures of this life. I have often wondered what it would look like to do a little weeding, to begin pulling out those weeds and thorns that distract us from our walk with God and keep us from growing like we should.

According to Roger, he knows what that weeding process is like. You see, Roger was in an accident where nearly every part of his body was injured or damaged in some way. Roger was in a hospital bed undergoing multiple surgeries and, for months, was even unable to talk. I went by several times to see him and pray with him, but the first time he could speak he described how God had used his time in the hospital to remove all of the distractions of his life and put his focus back where it belonged. His first request of me was that I get him a Bible so he could make good use of the weeks in bed he still had to endure. Roger had months of recovery and rehabilitation ahead of him, but he felt certain that God had been engaged in a weeding process, pulling out the things in his life that had choked off his spiritual growth.

When I left that visit with Roger, I experienced a sense of urgency to do a little weeding in my own life so that God wouldn’t have to do it in a more painful fashion down the road. Ever since then, I have been seeing things that keep me distracted from my walk with Christ and I am taking the first steps to begin pulling them out of my life.

What are the weeds and thorns in your own life? What specific things hinder your spiritual growth and prevent you from reaching maturity in Christ? Wouldn’t it be easier to do the weeding yourself than to wait until God has to do it in a more dramatic and, possibly, painful fashion? 

Religious Wrecks and Rabbit's Feet

Suggested Reading: 1 Samuel 4

The first car accident I ever had was in a little bitty red Chevrolet car. I was coming up on a four-way stop and the radio cut out. I looked down at the radio, then looked back up, then looked down and up again. The first time I looked back up, I thought I had plenty of time. The second time I looked up I was crossing into the intersection, past a stop sign, with a massive black truck blocking my way. I nearly avoided the truck, only scraping its license plate off the front bumper. My car, however, was a mess and was missing the entire right front fender. I pulled into a little parking lot to exchange information with the other driver and he noticed the Bible sitting on my front seat. He remarked, "Well, I guess that Bible didn't help you any today!"  We talked a little bit, and it was obvious the man was only half-serious, but his attitude toward the Bible was that it was nothing more than a good-luck charm.

In Samuel chapter 4, we read about an experience where the children of Israel treated God in a manner that was very similar to how that man viewed the Bible. The Israelites had gone into battle against the Philistines and been defeated, losing 4,000 warriors in the battle. After the defeat, they returned to camp, and 1 Samuel 4:3 records their conversation: "Why did the Lord bring defeat upon us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the Lord's covenant from Shiloh, so that it may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies" (NIV).  The Israelites' response to the defeat wasn't to examine their battle strategy or to see if there was some sin in the community that was bringing about God's disfavor. They just decided that they needed to bring their good luck charm.

So the Israelites retrieved the Ark of the Covenant, and went to battle where they were once again defeated and the Ark was captured by the Philistines. Eventually, the Ark was returned to Israel in a display of respect by the Philistines that far-exceeded the honor the Israelites had shown the Ark. The Israelites who received the newly-returned Ark opened it and looked inside and were immediately struck down. So the people of Israel decided to deposit the Ark in Kiriath-Jearim, which was not a center of worship, where it was left for twenty years.

Sometimes, I think we treat the Word of God a lot like the Israelite's treated the Ark.  We're not really interested in spending time with God, getting to know God, or allowing God to re-mold us into the image of Christ. We're only interested in the good-fortune it can bring us. We treat the word of God like a lucky rabbit's foot that, as long as we read it once a day or right before an important event, we'll have good luck in our ventures. And when using God word doesn't work the way we want it too, we stick God and God's word on a shelf and forget about them until the next time we think they might be useful.

God's word is not a lucky charm, and a relationship with God is not supposed to make life easy. In fact, Jesus warned us that following him would lead to persecution, hardship, and being hated. But God's word does help us to do something incredibly important; it helps us to discover the very Creator of the Universe, to encounter God as the revelations of the past collide with the power of the Holy Spirit in the present to create us anew, so that we can move into the future, confident of our Savior.

God is not a lucky charm. Let's not miss God by treating it like one.