"Behold, verily I say unto you, the angels are crying unto the Lord day and night, who are ready and waiting to be sent forth to reap down the fields;
But the Lord saith unto them, pluck not up the tares while the blade is yet tender (for verily your faith is weak), lest you destroy the wheat also.
Therefore, let the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest is fully ripe; then ye shall first gather out the wheat from among the tares, and after the gathering of the wheat, behold and lo, the tares are bound in bundles, and the field remaineth to be burned."
Doctrine and Covenants 86:5-7
The whole wheat / tares thing is interesting, and it is interesting that the Lord thinks that the angels might get it wrong... thinking about our lives, maybe even we would get it wrong sometimes, because we sometimes make some really bad choices that make us seem like bad guys, and so we're liable to think of ourselves as tares, or if we judge others by their mistakes, then everyone is going to look like a tare.
I think part of the point here is that God is giving us time to distinguish ourselves from the bad guys... to stop wearing the black hat, to spread some good and some love... to join the league of good guys. :) Maybe some of the parable is about Satan poisoning the crop, but I think some choice is definitely involved here, because we get to choose whether to allow Satan to use us as part of his army of scorn and subterfuge to discourage and deceive others. We can learn and become and grow up to be distinguished as wheat or we can become even more indistinguishable from the bad guys.
Today, let's remember that none of us started out as tares. That's not who we are. But we need to learn to stand up and be different than the tares or we are in danger of burning along with them. Let's do some good guy things--let's build up the people around us and make the world better. When the angels come around, let's make sure we are *clearly* on God's side and working for his goals. :)
But the Lord saith unto them, pluck not up the tares while the blade is yet tender (for verily your faith is weak), lest you destroy the wheat also.
Therefore, let the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest is fully ripe; then ye shall first gather out the wheat from among the tares, and after the gathering of the wheat, behold and lo, the tares are bound in bundles, and the field remaineth to be burned."
Doctrine and Covenants 86:5-7
The whole wheat / tares thing is interesting, and it is interesting that the Lord thinks that the angels might get it wrong... thinking about our lives, maybe even we would get it wrong sometimes, because we sometimes make some really bad choices that make us seem like bad guys, and so we're liable to think of ourselves as tares, or if we judge others by their mistakes, then everyone is going to look like a tare.
I think part of the point here is that God is giving us time to distinguish ourselves from the bad guys... to stop wearing the black hat, to spread some good and some love... to join the league of good guys. :) Maybe some of the parable is about Satan poisoning the crop, but I think some choice is definitely involved here, because we get to choose whether to allow Satan to use us as part of his army of scorn and subterfuge to discourage and deceive others. We can learn and become and grow up to be distinguished as wheat or we can become even more indistinguishable from the bad guys.
Today, let's remember that none of us started out as tares. That's not who we are. But we need to learn to stand up and be different than the tares or we are in danger of burning along with them. Let's do some good guy things--let's build up the people around us and make the world better. When the angels come around, let's make sure we are *clearly* on God's side and working for his goals. :)
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