SOMETHING PRE-EMERGENT

This, I know, will sound like a neurotic obsession: For the last month every time I close my eyes, I see splotches of crabgrass. Summer heat has turned the desirable grasses of my lawn brown and dormant. The same heat has caused weeds to flourish. Looking out on my browned lawn, I see everywhere splotches of crabgrass, like multiple, gargantuan, misshapen, raised, cancerous moles on healthy skin—only bright green instead of dark brown. In recent days, just a glance out the window and seeing the splotches would propel me outside furiously pulling them out by the roots. I could not wheel the trash bin across the lawn to the curb without stopping to pull crabgrass. Nor could I water my plants and flowers without reaching for nearby clumps. I knew my efforts were futile. There were just too many of them. Kneeling to pull them, I saw close-up the weed’s long, horizontal tentacles radiating out in every direction to seed the ground with more of its ilk. Uprooted and left on the lawn, once browned and dried by the sun, the clumps of tentacled crabgrass looked like recently killed humongous spiders their legs curled and withered. Any who love the look of a lawn of uninterrupted, uniformed grass know the revulsion of invading weeds. They totally ruin a lawn. You may ask, Well, if you hate crabgrass so badly, why didn’t you spray herbicide on it? I did. And that’s where I made my mistake: In the spring, when the growing shoots of crabgrass were small, I sprayed. After, the shoots had become cancerous splotches, I sprayed. When the effects of the spray in arresting the spread of the crabgrass were barely noticeable, I researched. I quickly learned my error: I was trying to rid the lawn of the weed post-emergent. Crabgrass must be dealt with pre-emergent. Crabgrass is an annual. Each clump lives only one year. So, what’s the problem? Next year, none of this year’s crabgrass will have survived. Not so fast. A single crabgrass plant, in its year of life, can produce 150,000 seeds. Many of these seeds find their way into the soil of the lawn where they can live for years, some germinating each year. The only way to control crabgrass is with pre-emergent treatment, with herbicidal granules that, when applied to your lawn, work their way into the soil down where the crabgrass’ seed are. Once there, the granules prevent the crabgrass seeds from germinating. As you must know, I’m not really writing about lawns and crabgrass. I am revisiting the insistence of my blog last week that the evil of recent shootings was birthed in the human heart. The clamor is to add laws to existing laws or to enact other proposals. Admirable motives, I’m sure. But, it needs noted that all these measures are post-emergent. They are efforts to try to control the evil that already exists in society and has already emerged from the human heart. The seeds of the violence, abuse, human trafficking, addictions, and the rest, are deeply embedded in the human heart. Something needs done that will get into the depths of the soul. Something pre-emergent. Simply put, the pre-emergent is redemption through Christ. After redemption, seeds of evil may still be embedded in the heart, but God’s work in the human heart, when and where allowed, is a pre-emergent. Active ingredients of salvation are the granules of Truth and Spirit. The psalmist noted that God’s Word in his heart prevented him from sinning. The apostle noted that living in the Spirit prevented the flesh from manifesting itself. The splotches of evil and wickedness on the soul of our nation, on the souls of people, are far uglier and metastasizing than the crabgrass on my lawn. Many are pointing them out. Some are spraying them with ineffective post-emergent attempts to control them. Only God’s truth and Spirit in redemptive grace will keep them from sprouting and, consequently, destroying people and nation. Even as I typed this, my obsession is urging me to go out and start pulling at clumps of crabgrass. But, I won’t. I know, what I really need to apply is something pre-emergent, something that will get way down deep in the soil. And, so, does our nation and its people.

SOMETHING PRE-EMERGENT

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