So how do you spot one? If the dangerous weeds look like flowers — if they look like virtues — how is anybody supposed to tell the difference?
Jesus gives us the test, and it's the same test the farmer uses: "You will recognize them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16). You can't always tell a weed by its blossoms. You can tell it by what it produces, and by what it chokes.
So here are three questions I've learned to ask, always about the good-looking things in my life, because the ugly ones don't need a test.
First: what is it producing in the people closest to me? Not what is it producing for my reputation, my resume, my sense of worth. Those are the blossoms. What are my wife and kids actually eating from this thing? My seventy hours produced a paid mortgage and an absent husband. Half that fruit was real. The other half was choking the field.
Second: what happens inside me when I try to put it down? Set the good thing down for a week: the overwork, the volunteering, the being needed, and pay attention to what rises up. If it's peace, it was probably a flower. If it's panic — if you feel naked, worthless, itchy to get back to it — then you have to at least ask the question: is this thing serving me, or am I watering it because it feeds on me?
Third: could the people who love me question it without a fight? Here's a hard truth: April had questions about my hours long before I did. The weed's best defense system is the label — question a man's overwork and he'll tell you you're questioning his provision, and now you're the villain. If there's something in your life that your spouse or your closest friend has gone quiet about because raising it always starts a war... walk back there behind the house and take a look at what they've been seeing.
So, what are you watering this week?
This is an excerpt from my book, What Are You Watering?, coming soon.