This is a heads-up to any one who doesn't know that a week from today is “Plow Monday,” the start of the English agricultural year. Of course, no good farmer needs to be told this. He knows the time to plow, or plant. Just imagine if he
didn’t.
Not being much of a farmer, I thought 2013 was my season for planting. Altha and I had moved to
a new home, new state, ready for ‘new’ things. But then, God began plowing. Familiar with Hosea’s words “It is
time to break up your fallow [unplowed] ground” (Hosea 10:12), I figured I had
some hard soil that needed breaking up before I could be fully productive! Little did I know how much!
But, God is the archetypal agronomist—who “instructs the farmer and
teaches him the right way to plow” (Is 28:24). While I do not fully
understand everything, I know He cares enough not to leave me fallow. When David was in turmoil, he said, “I have calmed (meaning to "level or make smooth") my
soul” (Ps. 131:2). When the plowing starts, will you take calm in your Heavenly Father's horticultural wisdom?
“Just say a little prayer,” one of Dionne Warwick’s popular songs, is not something you’ll find in the Bible. Yet countless people have been promised “If you say a little prayer, you are saved.” Billy Graham once said he thought only a fourth of those who said the sinner’s prayer at his crusades were really born again. In 2011, a George Barna survey seemed to confirm that; the survey showed that nearly half of all adults in America have prayed a little prayer and believe they are going to heaven, even though, afterward, they never attended a church or read the Bible.
In the parable of the sower, the seed that fell on rocky or thorny ground couldn’t take root and it died. Paul described true believers as those who are firmly rooted and then built up in Christ (Col. 2:7). A seed that doesn’t take root doesn’t grow. But why do some seeds take root while others don't?
The answer is simple. The Bible says “with your heart you believe” (Ro 10:9). Only God can open the heart. And if the heart is not genuinely open to receive the seed of Christ, it will never be rooted. So, the little prayer is not the issue. As A.W. Tozer said, “It isn’t the wording that’s important; it’s the state of the heart of the one saying it.” Paul says you will always reap what you sow (Gal. 6:7). But you cannot reap from a seed that never got planted in the first place.
“Do not despise small beginnings” (Zechariah 4:10). You may be familiar with this verse without knowing the back story. At the end of Israel’s 70-year captivity, Zerrubabel returned with a small group of Jews to re-build the Temple. It was harder than he expected; he got discouraged. And, people disparaged a structure that would never be as grand as Solomon's. For 12 years, the work stopped. Then the word of the Lord came to him through Zechariah to start again, saying, do not despise small beginnings, or small things.
Our generation loves BIG things—monster houses, mammoth malls, and mega churches. No one talks of doing “small things” for God. We like big, attention-grabbing projects and campaigns. But if we despise (regard as negligible or worthless) small things, we may miss the very thing God is doing around us.
The life and ministry of Jesus demonstrates the significance of small. Born in a small shed, surrounded by chickens, sheep, cows, donkeys—despised things—He would confound the wise. Hailing from the tiny town of Nazareth, with a small group of provincial men from a politically insignificant nation, Jesus changed the world, saying, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains (Matt. 17:20). Do not despise small things. That seems to be where God does some of His best work!
This Tuesday was the first day of Fall—the rainy season will be here before you know it. On one hand, I'm glad I won't have to water the yard. But on the other hand, rain-soaked soil is going to germinate ‘weed seeds’ that have been dormant all summer! Over the next few months, these weeds are going to sprout and increase in number and size until they take over my plants and shrubs. I loathe the thought, but the day of reckoning (pulling weeds) is inescapable.
Do you remember Jesus’ parable on “sowing,” in which He says the Word of God is a seed (Luke 8:11)? Jesus illustrates how the seed planted in good soil (our receptive hearts) will sprout, spring up, grow and increase. Peter also uses this metaphor, saying we have been born of imperishable seed through the living and enduring word of God (1 Peter 1:23). The problem is that when we were born again from this “living” seed, our hearts were already seeded and weeded with misbeliefs and unbelief. The uprooting of these weeds and replacing them with good seed is called “transformation.” (Ro. 12:2)
James explains that the transformation cannot be effective unless the Word is “engrafted.” (1:21) Used only this one time in the Bible, the word means to implant or embed. The seed must be deeply planted within the “soil” of a heart where it can sprout, spring up, and increase until it controls the mind, heals the emotions, and realigns the will. But for this to happen, the Word must be embedded, and remain there in a permanent fixed position long enough to be deeply rooted.
What is keeping the Word of God from “growing like a weed” in your heart? God’s powerful Word should be taking over and pushing out everything in its way. Perhaps you’ve been putting off the day when you will have to pull those weeds of unbelief from your heart to make room for new seeds of truth. Stop ignoring your weeds: the day of reckoning has arrived.
