But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred. Mark 4:20
A person named Christian repents and believes in Jesus, and then reads this parable. Christian of course wants to be the good ground producing much for the kingdom of God. All prepared to go forth and produce, Christian meets the world, and it wants something. The boss wants eight hours of five days, sleep wants eight hours of seven days, the pastor loves his volunteers, and didn't Jesus say something about visiting the sick and prisoners? How many hours do they need?! "I wanna go see this movie," Christian thinks with a bit of the ol' rebellion. Christian looks inside and wonders how saved one might be when clearly thinking of the pastor as a thorn. The ground of new faith does not look as good as it did this morning, and those bills in the mailbox definitely look like thorny ground to tread. Christian feels a bit wilted in the heat of life, does the soil feel a bit thin here? Was that the shadow of the evil one passing over?
We can sympathize with Christian. It seems at times as if the Lord Sower planted us at once in all three bad soils. We try to be a good ground plant, but - phew! - life seems out to get us all around and every day. There is a lot of pastoral metaphor going on here, but just hear and accept the word, little sheep, and the Good Shepherd will bring forth the fruit in us!
Bucky
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