I Want to Be Left Behind!

I've been so busy with my little job at the chiropractic office plus ministry trips and teaching that I've had little to no time for my yard. Today was the day to try to catch up on all the yard work that has accumulated. The worst part? Weeds! They had overtaken my flower bed. I have a lovely flower garden filled with lillies, mums, pansies, peonies and iris. But the weeding was tremendously difficult. These particular weeds had tiny slender stems that looked almost the same as the flower stems, and they grew between the flower stems so that I had to very meticulously isolate each stem and pull it. It was painstaking work, separating the flower stems from the weed stems, and as I worked the Lord gave deeper meaning to this parable:

Matthew 13:24-29:
"The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. 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?'


'An enemy did this,' he replied. The servant asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?' 'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. 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.'"


As in my flower garden, the good seed and bad seed sprouted and grew up together. But it was the weeds I had to pull up and destroy. How long have we been sweeping this parable under a rug, choosing instead to believe in a rapture that would cause all Messiah's "wheat" to be pulled up first, leaving behind the "weeds"? We were taught backwards. The wheat and the weeds have been growing together side by side for a long time - and at times (like my flower garden) it may have been difficult to tell them apart. But harvest time is coming - and at harvest time the Lord Himself will separate the stems. The weeds will be taken out and burned; the wheat will be left behind and then gathered by the Lord and brought in to reign with him in His kingdom for 1000 years on the earth.

O Lord God of Israel - I want to be left behind!