As I was on my morning walk the other day, I looked down and saw some weeds growing along the roadside. Just weeds, but awesome weeds! They spoke volumes to me! Have you noticed that God can show you something in a flash, in an instant, but you can spend a half hour -- or 10 pages -- trying to explain it and still not get across what you saw?

   It's a pretty nice neighborhood that I walk in. Fairly new houses, similar designs, brickwork on the fronts, 2 or 3-car attached garages, sidewalks and curbs most places, houses that are close together with small lawns that have carefully manicured shrubs and flower plantings, and beyond them is a hillside with many, even nicer, houses on it. As I looked at this scenario, I had a "sense" that all this "stuff" was very temporary, and irrelevant. Very puzzling. I’ve had this “sense” a few times lately. It’s as if all that I am seeing will soon be “out of the picture” – belonging to the past. So anyway, I was walking along (praying in the spirit, as I often do when walking, or any other time that I think of it), looking at things in this "different" sort of way and I looked down at the gravel that was the shoulder of the street I was on. Popping up thru the gravel were some of the first weeds of spring. Some durable, little low-lying weeds that are quite common around here. Somehow, they stood out as being in quite a different realm than all that I had been looking at. It was as if they said, “It doesn’t matter. Look at me.”

     I think two things really stood out to me. One was the contrast between the works of the Creator and the creations of man. I’d been seeing all the thing things that man had done – the buildings, streets, sidewalks, power poles, cars, etc., and  --  even in the yards (the places not paved over) --  everything carefully arranged and controlled by man. The whole neighborhood was mostly covered with the works of man. But here, in this one area that hadn’t been paved over yet, were these simple little weeds poking up through the gravel. From seeds that had been designed from the beginning to bring forth after they’re kind! Way, way back, a long time ago, God spoke and the worlds were formed. Way back – actually, if you look in the Book, you have to keep turning back towards the front, to the very first chapter,  and back and back all the way to the very first page!  On  Page One it says, “God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself.’”

    What I was looking at – these simple little weeds – were going right ahead and “doing their thing” quite oblivious, and undeterred, by what man was doing all around them. This is still My Father’s world! A contrast, as I said, between two realms. As I looked around I noticed more and more the trees and other things that were growing “naturally”. (Some trees were left, they hadn’t all been cut down.) I saw them all just going on, growing and developing as they were designed to do, or, as you might say, doing what their DNA  programmed them to do. I guess part of the point is that God had a plan from the beginning – from the very foundation of the world. And it is still being carried out. And it has an end – an end which He has known from the beginning.

   The weeds are still growing. Man is still doing his own thing. And God is still in control. (We need not be anxious!) (Suggest reading Psalm 46 here. What a blessing!) The heathens rage, the nations rage, but God will be exalted in the earth! Regardless of what man does, God’s will will be done in the earth!

  The other thing that God reminded me of thru those weeds is a point I’ve tried to share before. (In the “Consider the Lilies” blog.) There are two realms, the natural and the spiritual. We mostly see and know just about the natural realm, but it is a reflection of, and a forerunner of, the spiritual. “However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual.” Since the natural is a reflection of the spiritual, some things, some laws, hold true in both realms. One such law is: “As you sow, so shall you reap.” Seeds bring forth after their own kind. (Page One.) “And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain—perhaps wheat or some other grain.  But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body.”  The wonderful thing that these weeds reminded me of --  and reassured me of --  is that the seed that God has placed in our hearts (thru Jesus’ death and resurrection) will continue to grow and develop just as God planned and designed it to do!  If those weeds can make it thru all man’s efforts to have his own way and to impose his will on God’s creation, then surely the seed that He has planted in our hearts will make it too! It will become what God intended it to become. It will come to have the “body” God pleases to give it. (For His pleasure were all things created.)

   Consider: “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.  And so it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”  “The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven.  As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly.  And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.” (1 Cor. 15)

   When we plant seeds in our garden, we do have to put in some work to see that they have enough sun and water, good soil, etc., but we don’t have to try to figure out how to turn those seeds, or even the young plants, into the things that we want to reap. That’s built into the seed. God has already taken care of that! And God has not lavished more care on the weeds – or even the lilies – than He has on His children! God will have many children that bear the likeness of Jesus! The Love of God that has been poured out into our hearts will bear that fruit!

   As I continued on my walk, a phrase from an old hymn came to my mind – “This is my Father’s world . . .” It’s a hymn that I knew in childhood, but that I hadn’t thought of, or heard,  in many, many, years. I didn’t remember very many of the words, so when I got home I had to look it up. (Google is wonderful!)  Those old words blew me away!

  Here’s some of the verses. See what they say to you:

This is my Father's world, and to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my Father's world: I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
His hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father's world, the birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white, declare their Maker's praise.
This is my Father's world: He shines in all that's fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass;
He speaks to me everywhere.

This is my Father's world. O let me ne'er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father's world: why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King; let the heavens ring!
God reigns; let the earth be glad!