Daily DiscernEmerge!Michelle Gott Kim

EMERGE! ‘Bloom Where You Are Planted’

A Season to Plant: Growing Like a Weed

March 18th, 2022

Luke 8:15, ‘The seed that fell into good, fertile soil represents those lovers of truth who hear it deep within their hearts. They respond by clinging to the Word, keeping it clear as they endure all things in faith. This is the seed that will one day bear much fruit in their lives.’ (TPT)

Weeds: any desirable or troublesome plant, especially one that grows profusely where it is not wanted; a valueless plant growing wild, especially one that grows on cultivated ground to the exclusion or injury of the desired crop (Webster)

Weeds are incessant, and they spring up in not only fertile soil but also in the dirtiest of dumps and dustiest of deserts. A wasteland can be littered with weeds mixed right in there with the trash and the spoil of life. Weeds choke out life, and whatever is growing healthy, gainful and green, will be starved of nutrients meant for its flourishing, not the flourishing of weeds which seem to thrive sometimes on nothing good at all. We ‘weed out’ weeds; we ‘weed out’ bad seed; we ‘weed out’ poor choices, negative people and ugly behaviors. We often get rid of corrosive and constricting things that choke and starve life…in other words, weeds. Weeds have a lousy connotation, but you know what? There is good that can come from weeds.

There is fertilization to the soil that comes from where weeds flourished as well as added moisture. They provide shelter and repel pests and attract beneficial insects. God created and allows weeds in order to colonize ground that would otherwise be uninhabitable and to work the ground and prevent erosion.

But weeds are sly sometimes. Have you ever noticed some that look as pretty as posies? Tall, sturdy green stalks, with lovely little yellow blossoms often flourishing better than the real deal. In my own garden, I pause sometimes; sometimes I even let the thing remain when I can’t determine its background. Isn’t that so much like mankind? We allow things truly needing uprooted and weeded out to stay; we feed it, nurture it; all the while we wither while it thrives. It comes dressed in finery, speaks fluently and exudes promise, but deep inside it intends death, breathes decomposition, longing to snuff out that for which we are purposed, choke out life. It sure looked pretty from the outside, but its motivations were hidden and masked.

We ourselves can grow like weeds too, fast and out-of-control, and if we aren’t careful, we can spring up in places we weren’t meant to grow. In fact, if one waits long enough, our true DNA will be known by how and where we grow and what we feed upon. Before you get weeded out by someone who thinks you look as much like a weed as you do a flower, check your seed and your soil, and make sure the world hasn’t been what is fertilizing you.

One of the greatest things you and I can ever do is BLOOM where we are PLANTED. Beautiful things grow from the fertile soil of a willing heart.