The Parable of the Weed Burning

We have two chunks of garden, beds with paths in between. Both of them got overgrown with grass and weeds towards the end of the season, including the paths. This year we plan to put down weed tarp and wood chips, but first I decided to burn the weeds around the edges to make the tarp easier to lay down. I wanted to burn the whole garden but decided it would be too much trouble.

My thought was that the weeds I torched would burn and no others. This is how it has worked for me in the past.

I started with one lick of flame in each section and it caught. it spread like… fire. I had to scramble to get a hose up and call my son out to get the other hose. We barely suppressed it before it reached the wooden fence and the grape vines.
But it turned out what burned was exactly what I was wanting to have burned. Except that I hadn’t removed my drip lines first so they all melted down in the general combustion.

I was thinking on this–I had plenty of time to think as I stood there hosing everything down afterwards–and something inside me whisphered, “You don’t plan for wild success enough. Nor pray for it enough.”