If You Have No Grass Don’t Kill the Weeds
Here is a life lesson I had to learn the hard way…if you have no grass, don’t kill the weeds.
It started innocently enough. I woke up on an unusually warm early Spring Saturday morning. While enjoying a cup of coffee and looking at my backyard through the kitchen window, I crafted a plan for my day. I felt that I had reached the point in life where it was time for me to finally have a well-manicured lawn. I don’t know what got into me…it was probably the combined effect of the warm sunshine pouring through the window, the hopeful songs of early birds getting their worms, and a Saturday with no plans.
I am not naturally gifted in the landscaping arts. I do not have a green thumb. I am not one that enjoys tinkering in the yard. I am not a guy who has some grand feeling of accomplishment when looking at a freshly mown lawn. I have never been upset by a dandelion or crabgrass. I am not in the habit of comparing my lawn with the neighbors unless it is to take a spin around the neighborhood in an effort to prove that I do not have the worst lawn in the neighborhood. All-in-all, my decision to pursue a well-manicured lawn was completely out of character and out of my realm of expertise.
Without doing any research on where to begin, I did the one thing that I know how to do. I went to my local home improvement and garden center to buy supplies. I did not know what supplies. I just knew that I needed supplies and I figured it was best to simply wing it. Now, you may be thinking that I went to the garden center, found an expert, and asked for some advice on where to begin with my yard. Oh, silly reader…with your silly thoughts…asking for assistance is not in my repertoire. I marched into the store and stopped at the first lawn development item I saw.
Weed and feed.
Huh…weed and feed? What’s this? What does this magical product do?
A simple perusing of the label revealed that it killed weeds and fertilized grass. Perfecto! A one-stop shop for a well-manicured lawn. This was going to be easier than I expected.
I loaded a cart with as much weed and feed as I could afford, found a spreader on sale, and went to the nearest register to check out. I was in and out of the store in under fifteen minutes and was well on my way to the lawn of my dreams. I went home and spent the next few hours coating every inch of my yard with a dense layer of weed and feed. I assumed that if a little was good, that a lot was better.
My work was done. All that was left was to sit back and wait for the weed and feed to do its thing. It took about a week for me to see the results. I woke up one morning and there was no green in my yard…it was all dirt. Apparently, there was no grass to feed and everything that had been green was a weed that was killed by the weed and feed. I never wanted weeds so bad in my life. For the next several months I prayed for weeds to fill in the bare yard.
I refer to this experience often. It reminds me of the foolishness of destroying something bad without having anything better to replace it with. There are times when we crave change and improvement, but if we do not do the work of making and implementing a well thought out plan we end up doing more harm than good.
Jesus said it best. 24“The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. 27 “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?’ 28 “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ 29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 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.’” (Matthew 13:24-30 NIV)
