An Ounce of Prevention is Worth A Pound of Pull

Last year, I had the opportunity to help a neighbor hand weed his black bean field. We weeded for a few hours, making a small dent in his thirty five acre field. Then we left for dinner, knowing that weeds would still be there later, waiting for us to renew the attack.

Staring at those plants for hours got me thinking. Weeds and gardens have been used as examples of life for generations. We compare it to our hearts, to our lives, and to our businesses, and with good reason too. There are a number of factors that make the common weed an ideal metaphor. They are irritants, draining nutrition from what you’ve planted; Prolific in nature, you don’t have to plant them to get them; And perhaps most important: It takes work to get rid of them.

Weeds are everywhere in life, draining our energies and attention from the things we should be focusing on. They comprise not only the distractions, but the misdirections as well. Times when we will drive ourselves crazy trying to accomplish seemingly important or significant things, only to discover that they end in futility and sorrow.

Morally, weeds are the vices that spring up in our hearts. The little sins we are annoyed by, but do nothing about. Like weeds, these little sins continue to grow until they are so large and visible in our lives that they cannot be ignored.

No one wants to weed. It is a dirty (sometimes smelly) labor intensive effort. It requires taking time out of doing what we would rather do, to focus…