Message of the Day from Wendy Barker
In the past couple of weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time playing “Find the Vegetables” in my garden. Somehow, the seeds I planted have been very reluctant to show their faces, but the weeds have flourished abundantly. The chickweed grew into a lush jungle, and the horsetail keeps poking up spikes like malevolent dragon claws emerging from their underground lair.
I’ve plenty of time for contemplation as I gingerly pulled these unwanted intruders while trying to avoid damaging the few seedlings that had sprouted. In particular, I was reminded of the story of the Sower and the Seeds, which is significant enough to show up in three of the gospels:
Mark 4:18-19 • Message Bible
“The seed cast in the weeds represents the ones who hear the kingdom news but are overwhelmed with worries about all the things they have to do and all the things they want to get. The stress strangles what they heard, and nothing comes of it.”
In the past, I have always considered the story to be describing a one-shot response to the gospel’s story of faith, hope, and love — the seed either fell by the wayside, got choked by weeds and thorns, or fell on good soil and grew. As I weeded my garden, though, I realized that the receiving and nurturing of the gospel message is an ongoing process. No matter how receptive we may have been to it at one time (ie. what good soil it fell upon), we need to be constantly weeding out the worries, pre-occupations, self-imposed busy-ness, and other blocks that keep us from growing our faith, nurturing our hope, and abundantly giving of our love. For me, that often takes a lot of weeding!
Galatians 5:22
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (NIV)
Prayer
Creator of all that grows,
Help us to weed out that which does not matter in our lives. Remind us to keep ourselves open to nurturing the fruits of the Spirit that You have sown within us, that we might better share the love you first planted there.
Amen.