I like to meditate while doing chores.  Weeding has been one chore throughout my life that has given me metaphor after metaphor to understand the reality around me.  My Lord Jesus used sowing seed as an illustration in a parable about people’s reception to the Word, Mark 4:1-9.  Rocks and weeds took on special rolls in it- the rocks made the soil too shallow for the seed’s roots to get any depth, and the weeds would choke the seed making it unfruitful.  Now if you had both rocks and weeds where the seed was sown, that’s a double whammy.

At a college I worked at, they covered all the in-between places with rock.  Weeds would grow there as soon as Winter had passed and the snow had melted.  During times when I just needed to think, I would go out to the patch of rock and weeds just outside my door and get my hands dirty.

A couple things about weeding in rocks- 1.  Don’t expect to be a hand model afterwards.  The rocks made my knuckles raw and often they would bleed; forget about my nails.  2.  The lack of soil made pulling the weeds extra difficult.  I normally like to dig down to the roots to really get them up, but with the rocks I would just grab as close as I could to the base and pull.  On dry days they would often break at the rock level.

What are weeds?  Google defines a weed as, “A wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants.”  Within the rocks, the college had planted beautiful flowers and shrubs, but when the weeds grew it was sometimes difficult for me to know the difference.  When I’d pull on the keepers, since they were planted before the rocks, their roots held fast.  In a way, the rocks became an armor and the role Jesus spelled out for them was turned on the weeds

Working with people can sometimes be very much like pulling those weeds.  The hardness of life can make those plants closely guarded and it is often a battle to help them see that life with Him is much more than mere survival.