Removing the Roots

Some time ago I toured a friend's garden that she inherited when she bought the house of an avid gardener. My friend was enchanted by the flowers that marched through her garden from spring to fall. Just days before my tour, she attacked the weeds that were gobbling her garden. In an hour, she had decapitated most of the weeds with a weed-eater. It looked great--temporarily. This neophyte gardener didn't know that most weeds grow lustily from any roots left in the ground. Getting the root is dirty work--that's why I have broken and blackened fingernails all summer long!

The weeds in life must also be uprooted or they will continue to stifle our growth. A former childhood friend periodically calls me. On one of these calls, Herb [not his true name] explained to me that at the height of an alcohol-induced argument with his father, he had bellowed: "And you bought me right-handed golf clubs when I was a kid!" What did Herb mean? Herb is left-handed. He views the purchase of those right-handed golf clubs as a symbol of his dad's careless concern. Herb reasons, "If he had truly loved me, he would have known that I needed left-handed clubs." The author of Hebrews warns: "See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many." (12:15). A bitter root has been tunneling and spreading in Herb's life for over fifty years. It has stolen the nutrients he needs to grow into a healthy human being. It has choked his ability to experience God's love. He lives a lonely, alcohol-dependent life largely because he has not removed that poisonous root. 

Which root is easier to remove--a two-year old child's naughty insistence on flinging his food across the bow of your dinner table or a seventeen year-old's haughty refusal to help at home? If parents overlook this sprouting weed: "Oh, but isn't he cute?”, they won't think the mature weed is cute at all: "Just try to make me clean my room!" Now the parents have a lusty weed whose poisonous roots have spread throughout this young rebel's life, causing him to be alienated from his family, arrested for underage drinking, kicked off his soccer team. So many weed seeds have been allowed to sprout and grow in the soil of his life that they won't be uprooted without blistered hands.

Is That a Weed?

Weeding is a tricky business because weeds mimic good plants. Weeds in the older versions of the Bible were called “tares”—probably a ryegrass known as darnel. Seedling darnel is almost impossible to distinguish from seedling wheat. Once established, these weeds are nearly intractable. Even sieving the grain to remove their seeds is ineffective because they are the same size as the wheat seeds. Thus, these seeds are milled with the wheat seeds, creating bitter bread.

Life’s weeds also mimic healthy growth. For example, we should nurture our bodies with nutritious food, regular rest, consistent exercise. But a legitimate concern for our health can become a greedy, nutrient-sucking weed, which suffocates our search for life:

 

  Our efforts at physical perfection offer us tangible solutions to fix what ails us -- the newest gym, the latest diet, hip fashions, a nip or tuck here or there. These cures require effort, energy, and money, but actually enable us to avoid the tedious and scary prospect of searching inward. They make us feel alive, but keep us from looking into the recesses of our soul.

As the weed of physical perfection matures, we deceive ourselves by calling it "discipline" or "keeping a trim figure" or "staying in shape." But the bitter seeds remain: "We may look better and be healthier than ever, but continue to feel just as awful."

Some time ago I planted a packet of coneflower seeds. Nothing sprouted for several weeks. Was it bad seed? Finally a few green leaves poked through the soil. Were they weeds? I was on the verge of executing them when I noticed a similarity to coneflower leaves. Still unsure, I let them grow. In another week, I joyously recognized about a dozen seedling coneflowers.

What is sprouting in my heart? Is it the worship of physical health or the desire to care for my God-given body? Is it a love of money or the desire to be a faithful steward? What is sprouting in my child's life? Are her testy responses merely the normal struggle for independence or is it the weed of rebellion? My challenge is to recognize, then remove true weeds before they mature and drop their horde of punishing seeds into my life.

Unfortunately, my capacity for self-deception is immense. Even though my vision is 20/20 when it comes to a friend's obsession with his leisure, my vision is about 20/2,000,000 when it comes to my own bossy argumentativeness. Therefore, I must humbly and continually ask God to see with his eyes:

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

  test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,

 and lead me in the way everlasting. (Ps.139)