“Here is another story Jesus told: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew. “The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ‘Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds! Where did they come from?’ “‘An enemy has done this!’ the farmer exclaimed. “‘Should we pull out the weeds?’ they asked. “‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn.” Matthew 13:24-30 (NLT)
There comes a time on our journey that we must begin to take notice of what is growing in our lives. Much like the parable mentioned above, we must be keen enough to recognize the distractions that come our way to keep us from producing the harvest of discipline we seek.
Jesus tells this story to his disciples in order to paint a picture of the kingdom of God. In the example we find a war between two worlds. On one hand, the sower who represents God planting good seeds. On the other hand, there is Satan, the enemy sowing tares among the wheat.
Take a moment and think about how often you experienced God working in your life. Everything you set out to do was going according to plan, then all of a sudden here comes opposition to set you off course. Because of human nature, we panic and want to let it all go. However, Jesus shows what an experienced gardener does when faced with unfavorable circumstances.
First of all, He recognizes it is an enemy that did this. He recognizes the attack came because of what He was doing. He recognized that the attack was on the harvest. It was the keenness of the gardener that led to the decision to let the tares grow with the wheat.
He explained to his workers that at the time of the harvest the separation would take place. Instead of destroying the integrity of the future harvest, He paid close attention to it, recognizing what was more important. We should do the same when it comes to our lives. Rather than giving up when we encounter challenges, or reacting too quickly, we need to take inventory of what we are dealing with. We can’t allow what others think we should do to influence our decisions. We need to be led by the Lord.
You must be mindful not to allow the tactics of the enemy to get you so overwhelmed that you lose sight of the progress you have made. This is not the time to get distracted. This is not the time to allow yourself to go off course. Maintain your focus.
The harvest you have been working towards will produce good in your life, but in that time you may have to go back and do some separating. Whatever weeds or distractions, you have allowed to come into your live through relationships, bad habits, character issues, etc. will now have to be addressed.
If you continue to allow these issues to grow they will only take over in your time of harvest. Be like that experienced gardener protect your harvest through wisdom, knowledge and understanding about the situation at hand. In order to do that, it will take much prayer and fellowship with the Father. He knows what is best, trust His guidance.
By Mary Pinckney
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“And the Lord said to him, What is that in your hand? And he said, A rod.” 
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