We recently moved to God’s Waiting Room, Florida! Two things we are learning about gardening down here. The first is that the soil is sand. I mean it, sand. I am 45 miles from the coast and I am still at the beach! The second is that it is always planting season here. You can plant just about anything just about any time. July and August get a bit hot, but if you provide a little shade, things will still grow.
In order to have a good garden, we must add things to the soil. Up North we always had to add organic material to break up the clay. Down here we have to add organic material to retain some moisture. Everywhere we have lived we have had to prepare the soil to be able to grow things well.
I love sand. You can just stick the shovel in the ground, step on it, and it glides gently into the ground. You don’t have to jump. You don’t have to wiggle. It just slides in. Then you just lift out the sand, and it breaks apart. Clay never did this. Turning the soil to prepare it for planting was always hard work. I always hated that part of landscaping. Someone has to plant seeds in the ground. I love to watch the growing process.
Jesus tells this story about a farmer scattering seeds. He tells the story to teach a spiritual lesson. The first part of the lesson is pretty simple. The farmer is the one who shares the Word of God and the seed is the Word. We read this in verses three and fourteen.
This farmer is planting a crop of grain, wheat, rye, barley or something similar. The way it was sown was to scatter the seed by throwing it with you hand. You would have a bag of seed hanging over your shoulder and put your hand into the bag, grab and handful, bring it out and sling it, releasing the seed to spread across the ground. With grains you don’t have to worry about nice neat rows. You don’t have to worry about spacing. You just scatter the seed.
When a farmer was really good at this scattering, the seeds were dispersed fairly consistently across a field. I use this method to top seed my lawn. I am not very good at getting the seed to scatter evenly. I am going to get some more practice in a few days. The farmer can’t determine where every seed lands. Some lands where he doesn’t want it to land, carried by the wind and the scattering action.
The farmer’s job is to scatter the seed. Our job is to share the Word. We can’t always know the condition of the soil, the condition of the person’s heart. If we are a good farmer we will pay attention to the placement of the seed. We will work to be sure we share the Word with those who are most likely prepared to receive it. We will try not to waste our seed on soil that we know can’t receive the seed.
The same seed lands on all the soils. The Word of God stays the same. When it lands on a heart that has been prepared it can reproduce itself. We are all called to share the Word to one degree or another. Let’s do our best.
The Arnold Journey 