Sowing your wild oats? Picture Truth Series #4 by Gary Fultz

A sea of weed seeds ready to sow

The bulldozing strip was perfect. I stood in a sea of white weeds while deer hunting last November in wool pants. I spent a whole evening, after hunting, picking out all the various types of weed seeds that stick to the wool.

Like the dandelion, these seeds get blown by the wind and try to plant themselves wherever they land. The old saying “nothing planted, nothing harvested” is not totally true. The real truth is that we would have to do quite a bit of work (or quite a bit of spraying) to get rid of these weeds. The soil is now quite full of weed seeds for years to come. It is one thing to let a weed grow; quite another to let it go to seed. Even if we wanted a simple mixed crop of grasses and legumes for the deer, we would be fighting weeds for years until the crop could choke the weeds out.

Crop farmers know that seed bed preparation is absolutely important; one must understand it, and get it right. You might as well not plant anything if there has been no preparation, and your soil is full of weeds and weed seeds. The weeds you can take care of; the seeds are another matter.

When I was young, one of the neighbors disk ed a field of weeds and grass to plant to a grain crop. He made the soil black; it looked good! Then He planted his crop and let it grow. My father couldn’t resist making a comment and laugh about the field every time we drove by that year because it was a great crop of weeds, grasses and a few oats sticking up.

                    You do reap what you sow

There are so many lessons in life that can be drawn from this little weed picture. How about the weeds in a marriage? We see the weeds but the seeds seem to go unnoticed till they crop up in other areas. What does a proper seed bed look like in a good marriage where two people are growing in love and respect together?

Happy Couple

 I can say from experience that you cannot coast in your relationship; it takes work. It’s why some just start over, not realizing they are just bringing the weed seeds with them.

How about your job? Maintaining your house? Your teenager’s bedroom? Shall I continue? OK how about your walk with God? Is the three year old the boss of the house? Every one of these is brought into a proper relationship through daily discipline (especially the three year old).

“Sow a thought, reap an action. Sow an action, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny.”

Don’t ever think that a weed here and there is OK. They plant seeds by the hundreds after a season. They lie dormant in the soil and grow when you least expect it, sometimes years later. Best to take care of your soil (heart?) in the first place! Do you have a couple of good friends who can help you do some soil testing? Your pastor might do it for free!

Have you ever thought how much your relationship with God is the foundation of all other areas of your life?

Think about it! If God created us, He is the one who knows the what, where, when, how of each of our lives. Jesus said in John 10:10 “I came to give you life and life more abundantly”.

So how are you keeping your life free of weeds and seeds?

Gary D