I want fruit, so it's time to pull some weeds!
I really like the parable of the soils. If you'll notice, each example begins with someone who hears the Word. This is not a parable about the lost, but those who've heard the Word. Well, if I'm in danger of being any of these types of soil, it's going to be the soil full of weeds. I'm the oldest child, the first in my family ever to graduate from college, and daughter to parents who both grew up on the edge of poverty. To this day, my folks will ask when I'm planning to go back and get a Master's degree. There's nothing wrong with degrees, but it was a home where "Mammon", not God, was worshiped. Combine strong drive for success with an extremely extroverted, energetic (easily distracted) sanguine personality, and add it to someone who has difficulty saying, "No." What do you have? A perfect recipe for "weedy soil"! Like it says in the message, "the seed is crowded out and nothing comes of it as they go about their lives worrying about tomorrow, making money and having fun." It seems that here in America, our relative wealth enables us to very easily find ourselves a very weedy garden. So much stuff and so little time... right?! So, I personally have had to regularly go through our life, and pull some weeds. Jon and I work together to decide how much is too much, and then we help each other make that phone call, craft that email, or hold that difficult discussion whereby we have to say, "No," to anything that threatens to choke and crowd out the Word of God. My prayer and my goal is to be a woman like those in Luke 8 who walked with Jesus daily, received insight about the kingdom of God with all it's different types of soil, and choose to become "good earth", "those who seize the Word and hold on no matter what, sticking with it until there's a harvest." I want fruit, so it's time to pull some weeds.
Created about 3 years ago
