It grows either way

Here’s the thing about a thistle. Nobody plants it.

You don’t go to the garden center and pick one out. It just shows up. The wind drops a seed, it gets a little rain, and one day there’s a thistle. The only decision you ever make is whether it gets watered.

That’s how most of the stuff in my life got there, too.

I never decided to care what people at work thought of me more than I care what God thinks. Nobody sits down and picks that. It blew in. A comment here, a bonus there, a meeting where I looked good, and one day it’s four feet tall and I’m out there with the can every morning without even noticing.

I run a dealership. I can tell you what our numbers were last month to the dollar. I could not have told you, for most of my life, what I was actually feeding on the inside. The one I watered on purpose, the one I watered by accident, both grew. Growth doesn’t care about your intentions.

Jesus told a story about a man who sowed good seed and woke up with weeds in the field. His servants wanted to know how it happened. He said, “An enemy has done this” (Matthew 13:28, ESV). He didn’t say the man was a bad farmer. He said something got in.

Something always gets in. That’s not the question.

The question is what you do with the can once you notice.

So, what are you watering this week?