The little house looked very much like all the other little houses on the street: built the same year, by the same builder and by the same set of plans no, it didn’t stand out in any way. Well, there was that one slight difference in the healthy herbs growing in his front yard. Where most of his neighbors had flowers or foliage plants, this one house had pots of herbs such as parsley and oregano and basil. Probably the occupant had a “green thumb” and just loved growing herbs.
But the innocent little house held a not-so-innocent secret. Inside it was a garden, a garden devoted to only one kind of plant: marijuana! When the police received a tip and went to the little house with a search warrant, they found 163 marijuana plants growing in 163 big pots. Some of the plants were already four feet tall. They estimated the value of the plants “on the street” at about $400,000.
There was an elaborate system of control for temperature and humidity in the house, plus carefully planned light and water and fertilizer. Most human babies would not have been so precisely monitored!
And for what purpose? Was the gardener only working because of a love of plants and growing things? Hardly. His eyes were on money—big money—to be harvested from the plants. The money would be spent on even stronger drugs for himself. That was just the beginning of the story. Every sale of marijuana was intended to be one more small step downward to drug addiction for someone else, someone who would continue to spend more and more on drugs until his money would be gone. Then, caught in the web of an addiction stronger than himself, he would go on down into a life of petty crime and trouble and loss. It might end up in prison or homeless on the streets: a lost and wasted life, a lost and ruined soul, a terrible result of the hidden and covered-up secret of the little house that looked so much like all the other little houses on that street.
We, people—human beings—are much like that. We all look somewhat alike: two eyes, one nose, one mouth, bodies, heads, arms and legs, basically the same as everyone else. But what a difference there is inside! Some are on the downward road, with their backs to God and faces toward fun and possessions and, yes, money—just plain old money—that will make it possible to get more possessions that will give them more fun. But do you remember Judas? He sold his soul for money, money that he didn’t live to spend or enjoy.
What a relief it is to think of the other kind of people-people with their faces turned toward God and Christ, toward love and light and life eternal. They may look the same as others, may be going on with ordinary occupations and ordinary expectations, but their treasure is in heaven. It is not really on things of earth (certainly not in those carefully tended pots of poison!). What a difference! What an eternal, everlasting difference!