Harmful, Dangerous & Ignored

GOATHEADS

A few nights ago my husband was dutifully mowing the backyard while the kids and I were playing on the back porch. My husband tells me over the roar of the mower… “I found the stickers.”  Here in NW Oklahoma, everything that will get stuck to your shoes, feet or clothing are called “stickers.” Other parts of the country might call them sandburs or sticker grass or cockleburs. Whatever. I make no distinction. If they stick to ya’ they are called “stickers.”

I hop up to look at the weed that will endanger barefoot play-time. My husband directs me to two small plants on the back part of our property that look like a tall wiry bush. Sure enough, attached to the tops of the stalks are spiny foot-poking splinter-leaving stickers.

Then, he gestures to the far corner of our lot and says, “I also found a patch of goatheads.” His eyebrows rise as if to increase my own concern. No need. I know perfectly well just what “goadheads” mean.

These are the hell-like thorns that grow in long tangled vines across mostly dry ground and produce seeds that will pierce a tire. Imagine the damage that they will do to toddler tootsies. They are awful. So, I sprang into mommy action. By that, I mean I basically went to see what he was talking about and see how close they were to our immediate play area. Too close. Truthfully, I hadn’t seen any “stickers” on our property except for along the boarders and I guess since we don’t have a fence I figured they would act as a boarder warning. “Kids. Don’t go too far out there. There COULD be stickers.”

BACKSTORY

 We built our house a couple of years ago in the middle of a wheat field. There were goathead vines terribly across our dirt “backyard” for the first year or so we lived here. My mother-in-law came over and taught me what they look like, and got rid of most of them. They really like dry ground where they can grow unhindered by other plants.

They are actually called “puncturevine,” and many describe this plant as one designed to survive. It only takes 2-3 weeks form the time the seed sprouts until it blooms and starts making seeds of its own. The exterior of the seed… (the part that does all of the damage) can lay dormant in the soil for up to 7 years waiting for ideal conditions to bloom. The biggest threat to this plant is the growth of other good vegetation. Good plants like grass can actually choke it out… but below the surface dozens of seeds wait for someone to stop tending to the grass…

So, upon locating the encroaching danger vine I realize a couple of things. 1.) The plant is mostly dried up and actually I might have said it was dead except for the fact that 2.) There are an enormous number of seeds that are very much alive and seem to have fallen from the vine into my beautiful lawn.

I remember seeing the neighbors spraying the lot between our properties a few weeks ago (remember we don’t have a fence.) Whatever they did has stopped the plant from growing. However, as the plant dried, the vines that extend into my grass dropped their seeds… thorns… giant tire-puncturing goathead stickers! So, I decide… “maybe I’ll just pull the vine back a little and see how far they go out into the grass.” As I pull, the vine comes easily, but all the stickers stay behind in the grass. New method. I will slowly pull the GRASS away exposing the sin… ahem cough cough… I mean the seeds.

PARABLE

As I pull the grass back to see how much damage has been done, I am struck by the similarity of the unattended to bush on the edge of my property and the unaddressed sin that many of us ignore in our own lives. Here, on the corner of my property, in an area that I never visit, harmful things grow.

Eventually, after I get all of the grass pulled back and can see the full extent of the vine, I am left with an area of destruction 4 feet in diameter. There it is. Exposed. Hundreds of dangerous seeds just waiting for the next soaking rain to bury them in the soil for the next 7 years. So, I grab a shovel and start scooping. I jab the flat square shovel sideways into the dirt and I am surprised by how easily the vine and seeds can be removed. The neighbors had already done the hard task of killing the plant and its roots, but it seems like it will take me ALL night to get the seeds out of my grass. But the more I scoop, the more intentional I become in trying to get all of this plant. EVERY. LAST. SEED.

Sin is like that. It can creep up on you. Harmful, destructive and difficult to get rid of once established. I think if we are honest, we all have a little spot in our lives we choose to ignore. Sure, we have an idea that it is out there… but it doesn’t bother us in our daily lives, so why mess with it. Why risk getting poked or hurt for something that doesn’t really inconvenience us anyway?

Truth is, when we ignore these areas, they can become much larger problems, take over more ground and their seeds can multiply. Yikes.

So there I was, on my hands and knees pulling extremely sharp seeds out of my grass knowing that if I leave just one…  my efforts were pointless.  There are moments in life when you realize that you are responsible for taking care of this problem. No one is coming to fix this. No one is responsible for getting rid of this or doing that or moving this from here to there… and there certainly isn’t anyone who is going to get down on their hands and knees and pull these seeds up one by one.

ATTACK!

As if the pricks and stings of the plant aren’t enough, something is burning my feet. I look down thinking I will find a dozen goatheads stuck in my foot and instead I discover ANTS. My last huge ground scraping scoop has unearthed a colony of red ants that had made a happy little home in the plant. SERIOUSLY?!

This keeps getting better & better. Here I am trying to take care of this problem and I am being attacked by things that need it to stay. So, now… try to picture this… I am sweaty. I am covered in dirt. I am not dressed for this task (wearing shorts and sandals and cute shirt.) I have goatheads stuck in my feet. I am wounded with holes from where I have pulled them from my feet… and now I am covered in ants. I couldn’t be more frustrated.

So, here is how this ends. I scoop and I pick and I dig and I rake and I meticulously pull from the soil every last little seed. I shovel all of the junk up into a wheelbarrow and stand back to look at my hard work. I actually thought to myself, “There. It is safely in the wheelbarrow and I will just decide what to do with it tomorrow.”  But then I think, “What will happen if a strong wind blows the seeds out? Or worse knocks it over and dumps it all back out into a pile on the ground?”  But, the goal wasn’t to quarantine it, the goal was to eliminate the threat of future goathead growth… and that means taking the plant, seeds and future foot –jabbing generations to the curb.

So. That is what I did. I rolled the wheelbarrow to the street where I could safely pour the contents into a trash bag. My husband actually came after he finished mowing the grass and helped me hold the bag and dump the junk. I really did appreciate that.

MORAL OF THE STORY

Where are you in the process of getting rid of the junk in your life?

Are you at the phase where someone you love has pointed out the threat of something you chose to ignore?

Or maybe you have decided to survey the size of the problem and are wondering who else is going to come and take care of it for you.

Perhaps you are aware that you have this harmful thing that grows in the good ground of your heart, but you are overwhelmed with the task of conquering it once and for all.

Perhaps you find yourself done with the hard work but afraid of messing up again and dropping the seeds back out in the grass… so instead you leave the dangerous material quarantined and decide that as long as you have it under control, you can leave it alone.

Or maybe you aren’t any of these. Maybe you have been through all of those stages and you have gone to the effort t of getting rid of the harmful things in your life. You are sweaty and tired and hurt. You may be cut and sore and wounded and might have even taken further attack in your efforts. So there you are surveying the giant hole in your ground with holes in your shoes to match wondering how did I let it get this bad and what am I going to do to make sure that never happens again?

But there is good news! I want to show you where Jesus fits into this picture. Often times we think there is really terrible sin and a really far off God to take care of it. But that is not the case!

This story was never about the sin or the seeds… Jesus is always the point of the story and this is where we find Him in this story.

I want you to see Him in the neighbors who did the work to the kill the plant before you even noticed it.  Scripture says that God gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ before we even come to Him. That the work has already been done to defeat sin! The plant is already dead and all you have to do is keep good grass growing. I want you to hear His voice in the warning of a loved one who told you of possible danger. I want you to see Jesus as the one who gives you the tools to the get rid of the already dead and conquered plant…. Who made sure you had a shovel, the determination  and a wheelbarrow to get rid of it.

Then He came and was those tools for you. Like the wheelbarrow, to Him we can say, “Here, God. Take my junk. All of it. Every last seed. Every possible future thing that could grow in my heart and cause me harm. Come and take it away.” And that is exactly what He does. He comes and gets rid of it. Then, He heals the wounds in our heart and fills the places where harmful things once grew with good soil and new growth. He mends the brokenness of our lives and reminds us that the battle has already been won, but encourages us to not lose ground again.

My hope for you? That you would see Jesus invade areas of your heart where you have lost ground. That He would hold you up as you are set free from things that bring destruction. That you would not turn a blind eye to the harmful things that go unnoticed, but that you would ask God to show you where pride might be growing or where lust may have taken root. Ask Him to show you where envy or jealousy are encroaching or where unforgiveness or anger are leaving seeds that under the right conditions will bring more harm later. His love towards you is unending. His thoughts towards you are good. He has already conquered the enemy and all we have to do is live in the victory that is already ours.

Father, I ask that Your heart would be heard through these words. That those who read this would feel an urgency to seek out the areas of their own lives that need You to invade them. I ask for strength for those who read this to overcome sin. I ask for supernatural understanding that the victory is ours, and I thank You that YOU are good and kind and loving toward your children. In the name of Jesus your son I ask these things.