CHILDREN WEEDING IN GOD'S GARDEN

Last week, I spoke about our large family garden. Since Cindy and I moved to Potter Township, we started our own garden, and have rediscovered that weeds grow faster and healthier than any vegetable we planted.

Fortunately, weeding around cucumber vines, corn stalks or tomato plants is not as difficult as pulling weeds apart from wheat. We also have the advantage of using special tools and a gas-powered tiller. People in Jesus’ day did not have our tools or tillers.

Yet, even when the men who worked for the owner of the farm asked him if they should go and pull the weeds growing among the wheat, they were told, “No.” The owner explained that they may damage the wheat crop.

Sometimes when we want God to fix something, He says, “No.” Like the farm owner, God has a reason. The man told his servants that the harvesters, the people who would go out into the fields in a few months to pick everything, would cut all the plants and then separate the wheat from the weeds. They wheat would be used and the weeds burned.

Sometimes God’s no does not mean never. We believe that God will fix everything in His time, but maybe not in our time. God will fix everything according to His plan, but probably not according to our plan.

While we wait for God to act, Jesus wants us to pray. We need to pray for patience and understanding. We need to pray for God’s enemies – that they turn their hearts to Jesus and no longer hurt other people. And we need to pray for God’s Kingdom to come and for His will to be done.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and earth is named: Bless all children, and give their fathers and mothers the spirit of wisdom and love, so that the homes in which they grow up may be to them an image of Your Kingdom, and the care of their parents a likeness of Your love. We pray in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.