Verdant and Pernicious

This was our first summer in the new house, and not being much of a gardener, I decided to just kind of observe what comes up for a year before even considering any sort of effort. 

My dear brother visited about 6 weeks ago and told me that the lush plants in the flower bed would not be making good on my hopes that they would burst into bloom. He told me they were weeds. In fact, he used the modifier pernicious. Yuck. I know a thing or two about pernicious, especially in relation to my sin.

And of course he turned out to be right. Look at them, don't they appear to be full of life? Looking hopeful and flourishing? I mentally keep calling them verdant. 

When you pull up these apparently innocuous plants, you find an incredible network of roots and shoots to new plants. No wonder this has spread throughout the flower bed. 

My brother also told me about these nastier looking, obviously weedy items, which he calls plantain. He told me the green seedy part at the top is the flower, and that when they are "in bloom" like this, they are easily uprooted. 

He is right about that, too. Here is all the bigger the root is on these little weeds when they flower:

They are actually proving fun to yank up because the root comes out so cleanly.

Which of course, makes me wonder about the parable of the wheat and the tares growing up together and about sin itself. Maybe some sins are just uglier than others, and maybe you can't guess by appearances how hard they will be to uproot.