Pulling Weeds

I am at a loss with this one. I keep writing and rewriting in an attempt to sort through the heaping pile of information I have been taking in recently. Stories I have heard and conversations I have had, books I am currently reading, some articles, and observations... Many of these things at first seemed completely unrelated, but I am starting to see a connection that I am hoping is something both true and worth pointing out. I definitely have had my own emotional reactions to all of theses things, but I’m not too interested in talking here about my feelings on any of them. I would rather explore a bit what is under it all. I mean, otherwise I am just writing about my personal reaction to this persons reaction to such and such a thing. I have already done a lot of that, in conversations with my husband and several other people who were probably just innocently asking me, what they thought to be, a simple question like, “Whatcha readin?” Yea, I should have probably just given them the title and moved on. Sorry Everyone. 

The hard thing for me now is knowing where to start. Do I tell you about the conversation I had with a friend who is trying keep her head above water in a colliding sea of differing Christian theologies? How she grew up one way and then was thrown into another and is now on her own and seeing the water is even deeper and more vast than she thought? Do I tell you about the books and articles I am reading? There is that one book which is unpacking the viewpoint of victimology. There is the book by the famous pastor who has discovered the only real and genuine way to be a true Christ follower is in this one specific place, and the other author who has found the same thing, but in a different place. : / ?? There is that one lady who is a bit of a conspiracy theorist who gave me the books about how this pastor used to study under this one teacher who was friends with this other guy who sometimes has books for sale in New Age book stores. Or, there are always the stats; the stats (specifically about the American Church) that we use to motivate our Christian walk. The ones about how many people really truly believe this, or live that, or stick it out. I feel like I want to write a bit about each of these things, and maybe I will eventually, but I think I want to start somewhere else. I want to start where this all began to make sense to me, where all these vastly different things seemed to sink into a common mold. 

Matthew 13:24  Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

The kingdom of heaven is like this. And, we can tell. We look out on this field called the Church and we know that not everyone is genuine. We know that some people are “playing a game”. We know that some are hypocrites, some are materialistic, some have little strength to stand, some have an inability to let go of this particular thing to grab ahold of God. Some have tempers, some have addictions, some are self centered and arrogant. We can see it. After-all we are human too. So, we run back to the Master and ask if we can pull the weeds and He says, “No.” Why? Because we, with our imperfect eyes might accidently pull up some genuine wheat. Pretty simple. When God told Samuel to anoint David (the smallest son of Jessie) as the future King of Israel, he read the bewilderment in his prophet and said, “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1Sam 16:7)

All of these things started coming together for me when I realized this week that I think we really struggle as Christians with the desire to pull weeds. We are bothered that God did not give us the clear vision to always tell the genuine from the fake. In fact, He has also told us in many places that we can even be duped by those who look very much like the real deal, but aren’t at all. Remember Matt 7:22 where people stood to tell God all they had done for Him, and He says He doesn’t know them? Or what about 1 Cor 13:1-3? It says there that people can be capable of utterly amazing things, things I would think impossible without a genuine heart. It talks about people giving away everything they have for the poor, or having incredible wisdom, or speaking the language of angels... but they can do it all without love and it is worthless. Wow. The fact is that we are not very capable of judging the thoughts and hearts and attitudes of the people around us. Clearly, if it were up to us we would throw away the good and keep quite a bit of the bad. But, we struggle to give it up. Maybe because it is a little too uncomfortable for us. Maybe it makes us squirm a bit in our seat when we have to think that a genuine believer might just be in that Church we have cast off as too backward or legalistic, or even that God is using that whole Church in some mysterious way. Maybe we cant imagine how the Americans with the big house and the multi-million dollar company could possibly be hard-core lovers of Jesus. Maybe, we don’t see how that homeless man on the corner has anything worthwhile to give to the kingdom, or how that small group standing outside smoking before church starts has any evidence of “fruit” in their life...

The thing I see in scripture is that Jesus is the only man who has ever walked this earth with clear eyes. He addressed each person at their specific need and, where people were willing, they were changed. Sometimes it was obvious to outsiders and sometimes, not so much. Zacheus, for example, was a man of some standing and reputation. When he became an honest man and started paying people back what he had cheated them, it must have been staggering to his community. Everyone who came across him later would surely have marveled at the “honest” tax collector. But, Jesus also approached the man with the legion of demons, and after He helped him, it says he was just...dressed... and no longer insane. For him the “big” change was being normal. Not much visible fruit to see a man wearing clothes. We wouldn’t even notice that. But, for him it was immeasurably huge. I’m sure it was a testimony to those who knew him, but what did he look like to everyone else? Just Mr. Normal, I guess. If we don’t have the ability to see the heart of a person before Christ, how can we hope to accurately judge what transformation looks like for them after? And, this says nothing of the process of sanctification, maturing, growth... We often judge where people are at without knowing where they come from, when for some people just being dressed and sane is a mountain-sized victory. Obviously, there are Biblical parameters but, generally speaking, we tend to try to measure people by the details we see.  

Maybe it has something to do with the way we encounter Him ourselves. God reaches out to me in powerful and blatant, vivid ways sometimes and I walk away wanting to share that experience with someone else.  I want to meet someone who was blown over and carried away by the same conviction or scripture. Sometimes, He shows me a place in the world where there is a need because He has been working on and designing me to step into it. But, what I am tempted to do when I see it is to scoff, “No one else is here?! Does no one really care?!” And, that leads me to a poor assessment of the Church as a whole. The deficit God let me see becomes a way to start pulling weeds. I have done it before. In the various ministries I have been involved in I have often stopped to shake my head at the “apathy” around me for this particular mission. I have often seen a soap box from which to judge the rest of His body, when I think maybe He just wanted me to fill a need He had crafted me specifically for. Am I the only one?

I am wondering if maybe this is why I have read so many different things and had so many conversations telling me that the true test of my faith is not seen in my individual obedience to Christ or my willingness to go where He has asked me , but rather my heart and calling toward “this one” specific area where God is concerned. Maybe that is why we have little theological add ons to the Gospel. Yes, it’s by faith in what Christ did for you to reconnect you to God, that you are saved. But, the real way it is evidenced can’t just be as simple as being say, clothed and sane. The true evidence is when people do this, talk like this, pray this way, move over here, give up this, not look like that... Wow. All of a sudden we have this fabulous little way of seeing perfectly what God said we couldn’t. Its dangerous to go there. 

We just want to pull weeds so badly, but God says we don’t know the harvest well enough. There will be surprises. There will be people who knew Him that we didn’t see, and some we were convinced of who didn’t. There will be some who had the foundation, but everything they built on it was worthless when we thought it maybe looked so valuable... I think maybe we should fire ourselves as weed pullers and focus on growing instead. Here we are trying to sift and narrow down the kingdom and He asked us to multiply it!  We can trust Him with the field. He is the one who makes things grow. Who knows, maybe if we obey Him wherever and whatever he calls us to, the people in the body who need to see Him in the same way will catch the vision simply by the way He uses us to light up that place. 

I am not a “self-made woman"

        Nope. I realized this today while I was putting the potatoes in the oven for dinner. What did you have for dinner? I recommend roasted potatoes with a side of contemplation. 

 Sometimes people ask me about having four kids - four very little kids. How do I do it? How do I survive? The thing is, I have learned how to do it (rather imperfectly) along the way. It’s not that I possess some sort of quality that had “mom of many” written all over it. Goodness. There was I time, I am sorry to say, I thought “stay at home mom” was a job for those with no ambition. There was a time when I was convinced I would get to just live my own life without even so much as a husband to worry about. And, then it all changed. Scott came along, and I knew he was supposed to be a part of the future I had pictured alone. And, then the kiddos... We both decided that if we were going to do the kid thing we wanted to give them a decent sized family. We definitely didn’t plan on having them this close together, though. Eventually, when we realized we had no control over spacing, we just threw our hands in the air and ran with it. And, I learned along the way how to do it. If you think I must have had it together before, just talk to my mom. I was the space cadet kid. Seriously, I was the one who always forgot to do my homework. I didn’t like wasting my time with things like bathing or cleaning my room. Organization was a foreign concept. I was a person of deep emotion and creativity with ZERO bend for sorting out the details of life. Easily distracted, messy, yep all of that. Not exactly what you would call “mom material.” 

An art teacher once said that not taking an art class because you “aren’t a very good draw-er” is like not taking French class because you aren’t already fluent. That is exactly how I have come to think about parenting. Most of the people who are concerned enough to worry about whether they are “ready” or whether they are doing it right, are probably as good to go as you can get. Parenting is education emersion. I am not the mom I was with just one or two kids. I am not the person I was when it was just me and Scott. They have taught me. God has taught me. I have learned along the way how to keep immunization cards in one spot. I have learned how to keep the house clean, because when you have four little hurricanes, you just need some visual calm now and then, Amen? I have figured out how to think about dinner in the afternoon (most days) so that I am not trying to figure out what to feed people when 6:00 rolls around. Some times I even think ahead enough to make a menu for the week and to *gasp* write a grocery list based on that. Thinking about myself doing any of these is like having an out of body experience. It’s like I am watching this version of me from a distance wondering what in the world happened. Where did that come from? This was me with the potatoes tonight. I looked around my home at a moment when the kids happened to be relatively calm and engaged in something, the floor was swept and mopped, the dishes were mostly done, the counter was clean, bread was rising in my kitchenaid, dinner was bubbling away in the crock pot and I was in the middle of saying to myself, “Okay, dinner will be done in exactly 20 minutes when these get out of the oven.” And, then I was like, “Whoa...who is this?! Where did Martha Stewart come from?" There are just certain things you learn by doing. Necessity is the mother of invention...and organization.. and juggling skills... and who knows what else. 

      With God’s help and some surrendering to the plans He had for me, I have learned things I never would have thought myself capable of - either of doing or loving. And, now I am wondering what I would have done if I had stubbornly continued to try and “make myself”. I guess I know.  I have done my share of wandering through the fog, and fallen into many a pit along the way. Maybe I would have found some sort of level ground eventually. I probably would have stuck with what I knew, though, focused on what I was already good at, let the fear of failure keep me from trying anything outside my box, and never learned that I could be taught to do things far beyond the scope of my imagination. 

Doing this job, this thing I once thought to be so small and insignificant, has been the biggest learning experience of my life. Right now I know this; (though, I might need a reminder tomorrow) surrender is worth it. Teachability is good. Being wiling to say, “I don’t have it all figured out right now” is invaluable, because it leaves you open. Unfortunately, this is not me every moment of every day. I wish it was. I wish I took every unexpected bend in the road with grace and dignity. I wish I didn’t complain so easily when the house was all but flipped upside down and when I can’t find that piece of paper I NEED RIGHT NOW. But, I have more learning to do. I just love that every now and then God gives me a little present in the form of a snapshot - a frozen moment of perspective where I can hold up the me I have become to the me that I used to be and just let my jaw fall to the ground in disbelief. It’s like He is reminding me, even when I feel like I am going backwards or trudging through the muck up to my knees, I am still making progress. It’s worth it to keep at it and to keep hold of His hand.