Reading Backwards

 March 1, 2021

Recently, I got to thinking again about Jesus’ parable of the Sower. To recap, he said the sower cast seed on the path, on stony ground, amidst thorns, and on good soil. He explained that the different ground represents different people. The seed is the Word of God, and that sown on the path doesn’t penetrate because the devil snatches it away before it can sprout. The seed on the stony ground takes immediate root, but withers when the sun comes out and bakes the thin soil. The thorns are the cares of this world that choke out the seed. The good soil is people who receive and bear fruit.

What if we take this story in reverse? Here’s how it might play out: God sows good seed, blessing us with all kinds of fruitfulness. We are prosperous and comfortable, but slowly, we forget the Source of those blessings, get complacent, and begin to allow all the good we’ve received from God to choke out his Word in us. Weeds start to pop up because in our complacency, we stopped weeding. Pretty soon, they begin to overtake the seedlings, crowding them out. Yet we still sit, comfortable and apathetic to the garden of our hearts.

The day comes when the rains that watered the garden cease, and the sun beats down incessantly upon the land until the ground gets so hard that the seed cannot penetrate. The Enemy then snatches it up and we are left with hard, unproductive soil. 

God has blessed us with fruitfulness, but we’ve gotten comfortable, and this comfort has bred apathy. We’ve allowed the weeds—the cares of this world—to crowd out God’s Word. We’ve become unfruitful, but that’s not the worst of it. Because the Word has been crowded out, when persecution comes, we have no deep inner resources to face it. We wither until there is nothing left but a hard, unproductive, useless path as the Enemy walks right in unresisted. 

It is a trajectory that is being played out before our very eyes. We’ve become so accustomed to the blessings that we look to them rather than to the One who gave them. We’ve allowed them to replace our trust in God. When the day of persecution comes, we will see the emptiness of our faith, but it will be too late. Without deep resources of Scripture, worship, fellowship, we will wither away till there is nothing left. 

It’s not too late. The weeds have gotten away from us, but with determined effort, we can reclaim the garden of our hearts, sending our roots down deep. Then the Psalm will have found fulfillment in us:

“[Our] delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law [we] meditate day and night. [We] shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever [we] do shall prosper.” —Psalm 1:2-3