4-H and Weeds

My husband and I recently visited the county fair, browsing exhibits of food, crafts and animals. My favorite: enormous pigs, asleep and crammed into tiny cages like giant packaged sausages (which some of them may become!). In the 4-H crafts building, I noticed an adult mentor conversing with a young 4-H member about her project. The expression on the young person’s face indicated her openness about “doing it better.”

Seeing them reminded me of one of the first verses in Proverbs I memorized as a youngster: “Hear counsel and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end.” Or, in today’s language: “Listen to advice and accept instruction, and in the end you will be wise” (Proverbs 19:20).

As I grew up, I experienced the truth of that verse when godly adults loved me enough to have the courage to offer “advice” and “instruction” about changes needed in my attitudes and behavior. Some of their counsel was like the four “H’s” of the 4-H program, reflected in other verses of Proverbs:
Head (thought life): “The Lord detests the thoughts of the wicked, but those of the pure are pleasing to him” (Proverbs 15:26).
Heart (values): “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4:23).
Hands (work ethic): “From the fruit of his lips a man is filled with good things as surely as the work of his hands rewards him” (Proverbs 12:14).
Health (the physical-emotional link): “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones” (Proverbs 16:24).

So what does weeding have to do with all this? Home from the fair, as clouds moved over the sun to temper an already-hot day, I decided to weed our large rose bed. Kneeling between those thorny bushes with hand tools, I stabbed and pulled, filling a large bin. I found myself comparing weeding to growing in our spiritual walk. Sometimes we’re blind to our spiritual “weeds” until someone who’s more spiritually mature comes along and says, “This doesn’t belong in your life. You need to root it out.”

By the way, the roosters over in the fair’s chicken barn were quite a sight, too. One was strutting all over his three-foot cage and crowing. Talk about pride! And of course there’s a proverb for that: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).