If you don’t know what to look for, you will probably notice it. You may even ignore it but not my dad. It was an enemy…a cancer to be eliminated at first sighting. Dad was a shepherd to his crops. From the time the field was planted until harvest he watched over it.

I remember late one afternoon, just before dark…we were on the way home when he stopped the pickup and said, “Go get that ‘coffee bean’”. Yes, it meant wading out across the rice field to pull up one weed. “Get that coffee bean” meant pulling it up by the roots and carrying it out of the field. Dad thought of them as you would about cancer. It had to be totally removed. 

The “Coffee bean” weed in rice refers to hemp sesbania (Sesbania herbacea or Sesbania exaltata), a tall, woody broadleaf plant that causes major issues during the rice harvest.” Mississippi State University Extension. “Prolific Seed Production: A single coffee weed plant can produce thousands of seeds.”

“And there’s an important point for your rice-yield study: the biggest cost of coffee weed may not be killing it—it may be the rice yield lost while the weed is competing with the crop. The University of Arkansas notes that weed competition reduces yield and can also increase harvesting/processing costs and future weed-seedbank problems. Arkansas Extension Service” ChatGPT

The bottom line is the bottom line. Unmanaged coffee bean weeds will reduce a farmer’s harvest value in two ways. It robs the rice plants of  nutrients (food) during the growing or production stage and causes additional cost that is deducted from the harvest, to separate the coffee bean seed from the rice.

When I think about it, would that one coffee bean have made a difference in the crop harvest? Did it determine if we had food on the table? Not really. But it speaks to my dad’s practice…do the little things right that impact the harvest. Do them relentlessly & consistently and the right things will happen. 

It blows me away the parallels between farming and being an effective follower of Jesus. The “coffee bean” weed relates to the sin in our life. It’s that worldly desire that may lay dormant in our heart. Then it pops up unnoticed like the “coffee bean” weed in our lives. When I was young, I would just walk by the weeds. I never understood the true cost of the coffee beans until now. But I watched dad live out what he believed.

You know our lives are like my dad’s field. They must be managed.

God’s Word has much to say about how we manage our lives…our field. Several of my favorites are:

• 1 Peter 5:8 “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.”
• Matthew 26:41 “Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak!”
• Proverbs 4:23 “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.”

In other words, we all have the “coffee bean” weeds of sin in our lives. Note: Romans 3:23 “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” The question is, will you walk by them as I did when I was foolish or will you allow the Holy Spirit to pull them up by the root? An application note, we walked our fields throughout the crop year. There is no once and done on the farm, nor with our lives.

We know from 2 Corinthians 5:10 “For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body.”

And Jesus said, “Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.” Matthew 6:20