First Baptist Church of Herndon

Don't Blame the Bunnies

Linda Soller | May 27, 2013

Continuing in the theme of the planting season, it is now time to talk about setbacks. We all recognize a setback when we encounter one. It’s been a beautiful spring with just the right combination of dry and wet days. The temperature is steadily building toward summer so you plowed your garden and planted your seeds. Next comes the setback otherwise known as rain. I’m not talking that one day shot of soil refreshing gentle rain, I mean days of rain. Some days it pours and others it just rains lightly for hours on end. Your garden now resembles a gigantic lumpy mud pie. You are not sure whether to start over or spend valuable warm dry days waiting to see if anything sprouts. You are a risk taker, I see it in your eyes, and so you decide to wait. Sure enough your seeds begin to sprout and you are strutting around the yard like a rooster. Good for you! You were not distracted by your setback.

A couple of weeks pass and the garden is starting to resemble a flat Chia pet.  Little bits of life are sprouting up everywhere. You’re thinking of the large healthy salads you’ll eat all summer. You confirm that you have the fixings for your personal salad bar: lettuce, carrots, radishes, and some little cherry tomatoes. Daily you gaze over your grand accomplishment, a beauty of a backyard garden. One day you look out to the garden and notice something is amiss. There are small bald spots on your Chia pet. Upon closer inspection you discover bits of the leaves missing. If you didn’t know better you would say you have a garden pest of some kind, and not of the bug or worm variety. You make a beeline to the home improvement store to buy fencing to surround your garden. Your spouse has said no to a substantial fence or possibly a brick wall and so you find some wiring to serve as the “no trespassing” symbol to all neighborhood furry friends. That night in the dusk of evening you look out and there in the middle of the newly fenced garden is a large, rather adorable, but totally incorrigible bunny quietly devouring the tender leaves of your future salad fixings. This is the second setback. The fence seems to be in place and yet there he sits with his big puff ball tail eating your salad. Listen, don’t blame the bunny.

The rains will come and go. Bunnies will eat to survive. Neither garden setback was intentionally aimed at giving you heartburn. It’s just like weeds that grow no matter what we do. Some people manage to keep them “under control” but really most of us don’t have that kind of time. We can let these things distract us from our objectives. We can lose sight of the joy of working the soil, watching things grow, and maybe getting some fresh produce as a result. We can focus on the problems and setbacks or focus on the objective that got us started in the first place.

In the parable of the weeds in chapter 13 of the book of Matthew, it tells us to grow our wheat and one day when there is a clear distinction between the weeds and the tall wheat we can deal with it. If we get too wrapped up in tackling the distraction we may sacrifice the objective. In the case of the parable we want the wheat because it is the successful result of our planting. In our faith we want to strengthen our belief, expand our understanding, and demonstrate God’s love for all. We will find it hard to do any of that if we let the setbacks and distractions take up all of our time. We may miss that person who needs us if we spend too much time blaming those who give us grief.

Go on, plant your seeds, and nurture your faith and care for those around you. Accept that you will have distractions and setbacks, but please don’t blame the bunnies!

Have a great week :o) Linda