Good Ground, Bad Ground

We’ve all seen it. We’re driving down the road and see a poor, pathetic, smooshed animal. Sometimes recognizable, sometimes not, victim of a speeding vehicle.

Road kill. Vulture victuals. Victims of their own unthinking action.

The other day when my daughter and I were riding our bikes around a nearby neighborhood, a small group of ibis, very common birds in our part of Florida, meandered across the road close to the entrance to the subdivision we navigated.

As is her wont, my daughter encouraged them along: “Hurry up, get to the side, let’s go, let’s go.” The last thing my animal-lover girl wanted to see was a car coming their way.

They made it across and I commented, “You think they’d learn, hard ground bad, soft ground good,” referring to the road and the grass. Morgan came back with, “That sounds like the story in the Bible.”

Genius.

She was referring to the parable of the sower in Matthew 13:1-9:

“That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. And great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat down. And the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.”

Hard ground bad; soft ground good.

Is my heart hard? Am I in danger of becoming road kill, letting the good seeds of God’s Word shrivel up and die in my stone-filled heart? Are the vultures of the world circling, just waiting for me to drop dead? Oh, wouldn’t they then rejoice.

How do I keep that from happening? “He who has ears, let him hear.” Let God’s Word dwell in my heart so that it changes me. James, the brother of Jesus, talked about this:

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like” (James 1: 22-24).

Rich seed, wonderful fruit, a feast for the soul. That is what God’s Word holds for those who hear and obey, who have hearts like soft ground.

Don’t be spiritual road kill.