Dandelions

Most everyone enjoys a success story, and today we have a story for you about overcoming adversity and gaining the victory against fierce enemies. But it is possible that you will not enjoy today’s story, because you may be one of the fierce enemies.

Our story, you see, is about the lowly but tenacious dandelion. Dandelions are found almost everywhere in the world that grass grows—and particularly where human folk try to grow beautiful lawns. In such places, dandelion and man are pitted against each other in ceaseless struggles, and man can win only temporary victories.

Of course, if we are not overly concerned about our lawns, we are free to admire dandelions for what they are: a part of God’s creation which is not about to fade into oblivion before man’s onslaughts.

Dandelions—also known as “puff balls” and “peasant’s clocks”—have a number of characteristics that contribute to their remarkable endurance.

Take the dandelion root, for example. It keeps on growing as long as the plant lives, and may grow as deep as three feet. The plant stores food reserves in its root, besides drawing in water and nutrients through it. But the root’s greatest survival feature lies in the ability of any piece of root left in the ground to spring forth a new plant.

Rapid growth also helps dandelions survive. Their leaves can shoot up above competing plants to capture more than their share of the vital sunlight. Many a man who has mowed his lawn one day has been amazed to find dandelions already recovering the next day.

Dandelions are also tremendously flexible in their growth habit. If the dandelion finds itself in competition with a tall shrub for sunlight, its stalks and leaves can stretch as high as two feet to meet the sun. If, however, the leaves are frequently grazed or clipped, the plant will keep its head down and grow along the ground.

Dandelions are also among the first plants to flower in the spring, but also are among the last to close down for the winter. In some warm regions, dandelions flower all year long. And from these flowers come masses of seeds, each carrying its own little kite. Children love to blow mature seed-heads, thus unconsciously helping to distribute future dandelions to new locations.

Who thought of equipping dandelion seeds with their own little kites to carry them wherever the wind would take them? Not the plant itself! Over the supposed course of “millions of years” (which evolutionists believe necessary for such complex structures to develop), the dandelion would either have died out for lack of these kites, or got along very well without them—and in that case would not have needed them. But if the kite was unnecessary, but developed anyway, the whole argument for evolution is confounded. Even evolutionists admit that nature doesn’t fix what isn’t broken.

Everything about the dandelion, from root to stem to kite, proclaims special creation by a special Creator—Jehovah, God who made all things and declared them “very good” (Gen. 1:31). God’s handiwork is apparent throughout all of nature, for those who will open their eyes to see. As the Bible says: “The invisible things of Him are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhood, so that they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). But many refuse to see—of whom the Bible says, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Rom 1:22).

The theory of evolution is simply an invention of man to seek an answer outside of God for the creation of the universe. And it is passionately defended by “wise fools” who will believe anything rather than admit that God is God—because to confess that God is the Creator of our world is to admit that we, too, are His creatures. And if we are His, we owe Him worship and love and service. 

While rebel hearts defy God and try to shut Him out, those in whose hearts the Holy Spirit has kindled a hunger to know God can find Him in His Son, Jesus Christ, who declared: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me” (John 14:6). Jesus longs to satisfy hungry hearts.

The Old Scot (Ted Kyle) lives in Newberg, Oregon, with his wife Marga.

Source: The Gospel According to a Dandelion, Terry and Jean McComb, Teakettle Mt. Pub. Co., Columbia Falls, Mont., 1984.