Unplowed

Proverbs 21:4 Haughty eyes and a proud heart — the unplowed field of the wicked — produce sin.

I live in Florida, and yes I am old. I am in “God’s waiting room” as Florida has been nicknamed. But I digress. I live in Florida and my soil in my garden is sand. Not just sandy, but sand. If I haven’t enriched it, it shovels like the sand at the silky white smooth sand of Clearwater Beach. It falls apart. Castle buckets hold no sway with its grains.

Up north, where clay and rocks dominate the soil, a shovel’s pierce is laborious. It takes a long pry bar to dig a hole for a new shrub for the landscape. And then the clay gets stuck to the shovel and has to be pried off. Not so with sand.

But sand has few nutrients and moisture just drains through. Water-logging isn’t possible with sand. But it isn’t very good for growing things without lots of hydration and nutrient supplementation.

Up north, the problem is that soil gets too compact for roots to penetrate. Seeds can sprout, but then they can’t put down roots though the concrete of clay and rock. Thus, plowing is necessary for crop production.

It is necessary for our minds and hearts to be plowed by the Spirit of God. Over time we become settled and hard. We get ‘set in our ways.’ We get ‘used to our routines.’

If we stand a chance of change in the right direction, we need to be plowed. That is where hopefully we different from unbelievers. We welcome the Farmer plowing in our lives. We welcome the aeration of our soil and the breaking up of habits and patterns of behavior.

That doesn’t mean we always like the pain involved, but we do see the process as one of forward movement and not undirected chaos. Are your ready and willing to allow the LORD to do his work in your heart and mind? Today?