Shatter Cane and Weeds

I got to talking with one of my farmer friends a couple of days ago, and we were reminiscing on the subject of "the good old days" when I was growing up on the farm. One of the things we were talking about was the practice of sending us young boys out to the milo and soybean fields to clean out the shatter cane and weeds. The shatter cane in the milo was easy to get rid of, as all you had to do was take a machete' or a knife and lop off the head of it before it filled out with grain. As long as the head was gone, the plant was rendered useless, and it no longer posed a threat to the milo crop.

Weeds in a soybean field however, where a whole different deal. Yes, you could chop the weed up into pieces, but the chances were pretty good that with a little rain, it would sprout back up from the ground and grow again. Too many weeds significantly lowered the yield of the bean crop. The only way to totally eradicate the weed was to pull it out, roots and all.

It got me to thinking about the "weeds" and "shatter cane" in my life. There are some things that I find easy to lop off and clean up in my life, but there are other things that I find I have to work really hard to eradicate. Things like jealousy, anger, envy, forgiveness, etc. These are the "weeds" in my life. If I just try and chop them up a little and then go on with my life, they seem to keep coming back and choke me out from being the kind of Christian that God wants me to be.

I always wondered what the useful value of all that time I spent chopping and pulling weeds in the field was, now I know. You never know where life's lessons will come from!!

De Colores