FERTILE SOIL

Spring is in the air.  You can feel new life starting.  Birds, bushes and flowers are once again making their entrance onto the scene following the long cold months.  There is a feeling of anticipation in the air as we await warm sunny days and say goodbye to the dark winter.  It is also almost time to clean out flower beds, work the soil, and plant seeds in preparation for a summer garden.

In Mark 4:1-25, we read about the parable of the sower.  The Bible tells us that Jesus is preaching to a group so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake so everyone along the water’s edge could listen to Him.  He talks about a farmer who went out to sow his seed.  As he was sowing, some seed fell along the path where birds ate it up. Some seed fell in rocky places where there was very little soil.  Those plants sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow but then withered in the sun because they had no root.  Some seed fell among the thorns which grew up and choked the plants so they did not bear again. But some of the seeds fell on good soil, and the seed came up, grew, and produced a multiplied crop. 

The seed that Jesus is referring to is the Word of God.  Every time you hold your Bible and read scripture, you are holding the seeds that God wants to plant into your heart and life.  Jesus is warning us to work and prepare our soil so that when the Word is sown in our lives, we are able to produce a crop.  So my question to you and myself is, “How good is your soil?”  Is your soil hard and trampled down by worry or disappointments in this life?  Or is it rocky with pride?  Maybe your soil is shallow, and although the seeds initially take root, when trouble or persecution comes because of the word you quickly fall away.  Or maybe, you have good soil and you hear and accept the Word of God. 

My hope and prayer is that we all strive to take care of our soil.  That we would have fertile soil that has been washed and watered with the gentle healing rain of forgiveness through Christ, nutrient rich through the warmth of God’s love, and softened by His grace.  May we exemplify Mark 4:20: Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop- thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.”   

In His love,

Amanda