The Growing SeasonSample

Sit in the Tellico Junction Café in the spring, and you’ll hear farm talk from the center table—the place where local farmers sometimes congregate to eat a hot meal and trade stories, jabs, and strategies. Most all the farmers sitting at that table are in planting season. Fields have been fertilized, ground has been broken, and now seed is being sown— or will be, after they all finish their meals.

The parable of the sower, found in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, offers Jesus’ take on planting. Jesus started His story with a farmer scattering seeds, throwing them; hoping they’d prosper.

But some of the seeds didn’t make it to the harvest. In countryfolk talk, “They didn’t bear nothing.”

Some of the seeds were scattered and instantly eaten up by birds.

Some of the seeds were thrown into rocky areas, doomed from the start. Jesus says those plants sprang up but then withered in the sun.

Some of the seeds fell among the thorns. And those wicked things that poke and prick choked out the plants.

But the farmer persisted. Every now and then he’d have a seed fall into good soil. And the seeds that fell into that soil produced a good crop. So good, in fact, that the crop multiplied.

The parable of the sower aligns perfectly with agricultural science. But Jesus wasn’t telling people farm facts. His message pertains to the soul. Read Jesus’ explanation of His parable:

When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty (Matthew 13:19-23).

Jesus sat in that boat asking people to go from soil to soul.

He says we must have hearts that are softened and ready to receive the Word. Surface level ain’t going to cut it; the evil one snatches.

He says our spiritual lives need depth. Persecution will come; if our roots aren’t deep, we will not survive the scorching trials.

He says we need to be wary of temptation. We must repent of sin that can choke out all the fruit we are capable of bearing through Christ.

Jesus tells us to be a doer and a hearer (see also James 1:22). A believer and a follower. With Him, we will bear fruit.

Farm gal, we must plant the Word of God deep into our souls and care for it. Psalm 92:13 tells us that people who are “planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God.” God is the good soil in which we should plant our lives. Then our lives will be amplified for Him. That’s a crop worth sowing!