By Scott Gray, Men of St. Jospeh Member
Spiritual growth—like farming—requires patience. The grower in Jesus’s parable of the weeds and the wheat recognizes the value of the good seed. While his enemy sought to distract, the grower resisted the urge to raze his entire field to uproot invasive weeds. Many farmers would feel understandable frustration watching an enemy’s weeds grow alongside the wheat for an entire growing season. Nonetheless, the wise grower persevered in the hope of a fruitful harvest.
This parable assures us that God is patient with us. Good ultimately will prevail, but God does not shield us from bad experiences. While we may dislike the adversity, we reap many benefits from God’s patience. I experience the blessing of God’s mercy firsthand each time I confess a recurrence of sin during reconciliation. We depend on the Lord’s patience because we all are unworthy of the salvation that God offers. Thus, it is comforting to know that God is quick to provide second chances.
It is far harder to live out the Lord’s model of patience in my own life. For a perfectionist like me, the inevitable weeds that encroach on my life indicate points of failure. My instinct is to clear these weeds out immediately and to guard restlessly against any future incursions. A distaste for sin, of course, is an important part of spirituality. An unrelenting focus on the weeds, however, can make it easier to overlook the good seed underneath.
The grower’s example calls on us to shift our focus from sinfulness to virtue. Our brokenness is a part of our human experience. The weeds that undercut our lives begin to shrivel and die, however, when we starve them of energy. Under this approach, every step we take toward God is a step worth taking. Every moment in prayer or service to others is another punch against the brokenness that allows sin to take root in our lives.
Ultimately, God asks us to embrace our spiritual growth with patience. As we reflect on this gospel, what can we do today to cultivate the good seeds of virtues in our lives?
