Here on the Gulf Coast, as well as in the northern hemisphere, spring and summer is the time where everything really starts to grow! As I sit at my desk in my office, the noise outside of mowers, trimmers, blowers and the like is almost distracting, but a welcome sound.

As I mowed the lawn earlier this week, something else caught my attention that is growing…yes, you guessed it, weeds. My grass is green, but more noticeably, are the various weeds, they are growing, and in abundance, or so it seems in my yard.

A famous quote came to mind, “And what is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not been discovered.”  — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I pondered Emerson’s words again today, when did these words come to him?

It could have been the day when the harvest was ready to be gathered, and the golden fields rippled with the wind, wheat soon to be winter’s bread. Many decades ago, wheat was once thought to be, yes, a weed, useless to mankind. Useless we might ask?

Perhaps on that day, as he was looking at the bountiful fields, as Emerson was returning from a visit to his friend the teacher, Bronson Alcott—the tireless, undefeatable, man—and he paused to reflect on Alcott’s tenacious insistence that it was never the “bad person” who was to blame but those who lacked patience to probe beneath the surface to search for what is good, however unpromising or unfriendly that surface might be.

History spoke of a well-known truism, and it was well known, there were indeed no “weeds” in Bronson Alcott’s classroom.

So many times over the years, in clinics, hospitals, church congregations, and youth camps I have seen the apparently hopeless person transformed into a hopeful and helpful person—someone who gives, not takes—by the simplest display of others and my interest and belief in him or her. Encouragement goes a long way in this world.

It makes me wonder how many citizens, genuine people who contribute to the common health of all of us, have been lost because someone, somewhere was misled by the husk or covering, and did not look for or see the golden grain hidden inside. Perhaps the outside obstructed their view of the inside?

How does God indeed look at His children that He has created in His image? Do we look at each other the same?

I suppose my friends, it all boils down to this : One of our first “to dos” on our daily list should be to pause before passing judgement, remembering that the apparently useless weed in my lawn, or in the dirt along the roadside, with care and cultivation, may provide tomorrow’s bread and food for us all.

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (I Samuel 16:7)

You and I can take great courage knowing that God indeed looks on the heart in building that relationship with Him.

…as I close this letter, as I do every Friday evening…as we enter His Sabbath…reflect on this with me, will you?