One Enormous Weed – One Small Child

I tugged hard at the stubborn weed; and when it gave way, I toppled over backwards. Without hesitation I was back on my feet. “Woohoo,” I said out loud. How exciting! This was a trophy of a weed. After admiring it sufficiently, I tossed the enormous thing into my wheelbarrow and turned to view the clean spot in my flower bed.

With such success to my name, I searched around for my next conquest. That’s when I noticed all the tiny weeds barely visible under the edge of my azalea bush. I leaned closer to the ground and picked mindlessly at a few of the undesirable plants. Somehow, after pulling a giant weed, wasting time on these insignificant ones held little thrill. Instead, I spotted another weed worthy of my efforts a few feet away; so I scooted over and began to pull.

Ugh, this one was really cemented into the earth. I twisted and jerked until it broke off leaving the roots firmly seated in the ground. After a few more futile attempts where I ended up with a handful of leaves but no roots, I wheeled my yard waste over to the compost pile and went inside.

The next few weeks were packed full of activity, and I didn’t do much yard work at all, but I was ok with that. The yard was shaping up quite respectably. After all, I’d gotten most of the big stuff out of the way.

My confidence flew away like a bird with a juicy worm when I again made my way out to the garden. Down on my hands and knees, I worked my way around the corner of the house, and right before me was my azalea shrub surrounded by a ton of gigantic weeds. Where did all of these come from? I could feel my forehead wrinkling into a frown.

For the next 30 minutes I dug them out one by one; and when I had finished, I was left with torn, filthy fingernails…and a lesson.

I tried not to think about how quickly and easily those same weeds would have come up three weeks ago, but I couldn’t help myself. I’d decided they weren’t worth the bother; so I ignored them.

Jesus’ disciples had a similar reaction – not to weeds – to children. Thinking young people were a bother to Jesus and unimportant, they reprimanded those who brought them to Him. But Jesus became indignant and said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God.” Mark 10:14b NKJV

 Have you ever noticed how excited we become when we hear that an adult has received Christ as their Savior? It’s not that we aren’t happy when a child gets saved; but an adult, now there’s a trophy worth telling everyone about. Sometimes we point to them and say, “Think of all they’ll be able to do for God.”

Weeds that are allowed to grow  choke out good plants, use precious nutrients in the soil, and reseed themselves ruining even more earth. What a shame we didn’t get to them when they were little and before they could do so much damage.  Sadly, many adults are like weeds.  They’ve  squandered away the best years of their lives. How many other lives have they influenced for evil?

Children who are reached at a young age have their entire lives to live for God. Instead of leading others down a sinful path, they can develop talents that will be useful for God’s kingdom.

Unlike weeds which never turn into anything useful, the life of one child can make an eternal difference. Jesus placed great importance on a child’s worth, and so should we.

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