Fell on the Path

As I began reflecting upon the parable of the sower, as it relates to yielding a bountiful harvest, I found it interesting that Jesus began His teaching with a seed that fell on the path.

I’m a visual person and when it came to learning from this parable I ended up drawing out the following matrix that helped me think about and reflect upon each set of circumstances.

Getting started I had to cement a salient truth that can easily be overlooked when thinking about this scripture - the farmer is sowing the Word of God.

That takes some pressure off because now I get to think about this parable in a whole new light - the ground itself versus the one doing the sowing. As someone who has grown gardens in the past, this was a key shift as having the right condition of the soil will make or break a harvest. Before I go too far there are two items that kept surfacing over and over that I found myself wrestling with and at the end of the day came to the realization that these are the two hinge points to understanding and evaluating the condition of the soil - they are our level of understanding and our willingness to obey.

Now hang with me for a second, Jesus begins this parable with the seed that simply falls out on the ground and immediately is scooped up by the world. Thinking about the understanding/obedience matrix, a natural place that seems to fit these criteria is the bottom left. This shows up in my life when I’m being willfully disobedient. Usually, an underlying root of the reason behind the disobedience is tied to individual pride. When my pride outweighs what God is trying to show me, I often move to a dismissal mentally and that is the equivalent of the birds carrying it away.

It seems that when I don’t have the desire to understand a new concept, much less do something that I don’t want to do, putting up the stiff arm is a natural response and is much easier than anything that challenges my status quo. Jesus is extremely clear with who the enemy is that is taking this Word from us in this scenario - Satan.

Satan is going to do all he can to ensure you are not understanding and obeying what God has called us to do. He goes to extreme lengths to execute this strategy and an interesting item to consider in his strategy is the idea of being busy. When we are busy we have no bandwidth to learn and obey because we are often too distracted.

Questions to Consider

1. How can you prioritize creating space in your life to nurture deeper understanding and obedience amidst the distractions of busyness?
2. Reflecting on the understanding/obedience matrix, where do you find yourself positioned most often?