makes the seeds grow
August 16, 2010 (Monday)
When a gardener sows his seeds, he doesn’t always get good results, because he doesn’t always plant seed in the same kind of soil. Just as there are different types of soil, there are different types of hearers when the Word of God is shared (like a gardener planting seeds).
Some people are like the hard ground of the path upon which the sower walks. As he moves along, he drops a few seeds and they fall to the hard surface of the well-traveled path. The birds fly down and gobble them up. Sometimes the gospel is shared with people who are not really listening. They do not engage their spiritual ears. They’ve got a lot of other things on their minds.
When the gardener reaches the garden spot, he sows the seed, but if the soil is rocky, the seeds don’t take root. Some folks are like the rocky soil; they seem to accept the Word of God, but they don’t actually commit themselves to follow its teachings. They soon go back to life just as it was before they seemed to make a change.
The sower of the seeds may think he has sown in good ground, but unseen to him are the weeds and thorny plants that are already there, hidden in the soil. As the seeds grow into plants, so the thorns grow with them, and choke them so that they produce no fruit. When a person hears the Gospel, he sometimes seems to be committed to Christ, but after a while he becomes entangled with the world again, and goes back to his old life.
Then Jesus talked about the good soil, that accepts and nurtures the seeds and grows a great crop. Some people hear the Word of God, believe it sincerely, and become productive for God. Are you “good soil?”
(Based on Mark 4:1-20).