Sowing

As I write this I am enjoying a beautiful, fully sunny February day. A few hearty songbirds are singing a song that sounds like spring, the ice and snow on the roads are melting after this week’s snowfall. And men with powerful [and large and expensive!] “toys” are out doing what they can while the ground is basically frozen. This is what the scene was yesterday at our house:

My brother-in-law brought this mini-excavator to help us tear down trees so we can have more sunshine for our garden and sheep pasture. Then this morning a neighbor who also has powerful “toys” finished off the leveling job.

This whole area was covered with scrub brush and full grown trees until yesterday. Now it is ready for a new purpose. Now it is ready to be sown into.

“Listen! A sower went out to sow seed; and as he was sowing, some seed fell by the road, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocks where there was not much soil; and immediately a plant sprang up because the soil had no depth. And when the sun came up, the plant was scorched; and because it had no root, it dried up and withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no grain.  And other seed fell into good soil, and as the plants grew and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundred times [as much as had been sown].” And He said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear and heed My words.” (Mark 4:3-9 AMP)

Sowing God,

Thank you for your Word that reminds us to always keep our hearts open to receive what you have for us. Help us to have ears to hear and heed your words. Thank you for the ways in which you clean out the junk in our lives and sow your seeds into us. Protect the soil of our hearts from the snatching birds or choking weeds and thorns of this world. Deepen the roots of your Spirit within us and guard our lives from anything that keeps us from being fully used by you. Help the soil of our spirits to be healthy so we can produce a crop of righteousness, peace, and joy within our lives. We ask this in Jesus’s name, Amen.