Sowing into good soil

To be “good soil” you need a whole pile of stuff to happen. A good mixture of weather – rainy days and sunny days – balanced like. Lots of worms making holes as they slither through. Lots of manure and fertilizer (organic of course)

What I mean is “good soil” doesn’t just happen. We can’t decide that today is the day we become good soil. But today can be the day we can work towards it. When I say work, I mean vocation. We hunger and thirst to know more and to know Christ. And it is that hunger and thirst that provides the motivation to  – – -read the bible, meet in fellowship, worship in church, love each other and to sow those seeds — show and tell the GOOD NEWS of the Kingdom.

Those activities aerate our soil so it becomes a pleasant place for seeds to grow and become beautiful plants but the real beauty comes in how we handle the manure that gets thrown on our soil.

Do we try to get rid of it, because it smells? Like hiding a gas bill in a drawer so we ignore it and it just gets bigger and bigger.

Do we leave it on the surface, like a label? – don’t come near me I am too {angry, hurt, hurtful, criminal, tired, sick, unloveable}

OR

Do we work it into our soil? Our past experiences, our current trials allow God to hone us, knock off our sharp edges but more than that. We are released from our past. Wherever we have been, whatever we have done.

Whether we have dirt under our fingernails or beautiful manicured hands

Whether we wear preacher clothes or torn jeans

Whether we have white pearly teeth or broken brown yellow ones

We all need to work in the manure deep into our soil to make it “good soil”

And we need the manure

It might not smell nice, it might be a horrible experience but afterwards when we have worked it in, it makes us better for it. And when it is worked in completely it no longer smells. {bonus}

So fertilizer – all those devotional things – bible reading, fellowship, worship, praise, prayer, listening to God and promptings by the Spirit.

So worms – people that we like or don’t like that move through our lives changing bits about us, changing our life experiences, changing our church life.

So manure – the stuff – the good and the bad, the sin, the stuff done to us

So rain – we got to have rain to see rainbows

So sun – when every thing is peachy we can forget to lean on the Lord, on His strength, on His understanding