What Kind of Soil Are You?

“Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture.” Luke 8:6

I think that gardening is pretty amazing. Although one day I would love to have a garden of plants and vegetables, I have to be honest and say that I don’t have too much practice with plants. I’ve done a few projects to learn but I don’t have my garden yet. One of the things that I do understand about planting is that you first have to have good soil or it is unlikely that the seed will take root and every really grow.

In this parable, Jesus is explaining what happens when the Word of God is given to different categories of people. He compared the word to a seed and explained how some seeds fell by the wayside, some seeds fell on rock (which is our verse above). Some seeds fell and were snatched up right away and some fell on good soil. Now I know we would all love to be the people who have good soil and whenever we hear the word of God we soak it up and water it and it grows, but the reality is, that’s not the majority of us.

In fact, I would argue that most people would fall into the category of the rock. We hear the word of God, we receive encouragement, we get instructions and we know it’s good for us. We know it needs to be nurtured, but because we don’t typically want to do the work of digging up our foundation and making sure it is good soil, when our plant grows, it withers away because we never made sure it had moisture in the first place.

You know what I mean? You receive a word, a verse, a scripture, and confirmation about something that you should be doing but once you get the word, you don’t do anything. You don’t pray, you don’t work to accomplish what God just told you. And what we end up doing is not having anything to sustain and nourish the word that was given to us.

Can you imagine having a seed in front of you that you’ve been waiting for? A seed that you’ve have been preparing for? A seed that you’ve been praying for? A seed that will become a valuable plant that will benefit you and everyone around you? You can look at it all you want. You can think about it all you want, but if you don’t water it, if you don’t feed it, if the soil is not good soil, it won’t grow and it won’t last. This is the era we are living in. It’s an era where many people have great words and promises from God but have done nothing to nourish it.

Here’s the thing about putting a seed into rock: there’s nowhere for the seed to grow. The rock is too hard to allow the seed to do what it naturally does. And the rock is usually below the surface. What this usually looks like is a person who seems ready to receive and act on a word but on the inside is too stubborn or too stuck in his or her ways to allow room for what God has said to take root and grow. It doesn’t matter how many plans I have for a seed. If I planted it in rock, my plans mean nothing because the rock is not conducive for the seed’s growth.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be the person who receives a word but because I was distracted, lazy or too stubborn, I never watered it. I never fed it. I never worked on it. I never did anything but be excited for it. And I don’t want that for you. I don’t want you to think your plant is good because you heard great words and look good on the surface but then your plant withers and dies because you never watered it or nourished it. It is very easy for pride to set in if you think your plant is growing when in reality it’s dying from the root.

Today, I hope that you remember every word that God has given you. But I pray that you go a step further. I pray that we are not like the people who received the word but it was like falling on rocks. I pray that we don’t starve and dehydrate our seed (word or promise) because we never took the time to check the soil, to check our hearts, to check our motives, to check us. Let’s aim today to water and nourish every seed that God plants within us until it grows to its full potential.