(Matthew 13 - Mark 4 - Luke 8)
Good soil produces good fruit, plain and simple. The soil on the path had been trampled and walked on for so long that it had become hardpacked, tough and impenitrable. The soil on the rocks lacked depth and had no place for the seed to take root. The thorny soil had sat so long uncultivated that weeds and thorns grew in abundance. None of these had room for a new seed, or any seed at all for that matter. But the good soil was altogether different. This soil had been worked on. It had yielded itself to the Gardener's plow, had yielded itself to the digging, and therefore was now ready and open to receive the seed.
The good news of all of this is that you are much more than a plot of dirt. You may not have much choice over where your life was laid or choices other people made about you or towards you, but you do have a choice as to which type of soil you will be. Will you let the abuse that life tends to bring with it harden your heart to the point that you're not even sure that its beating anymore? Will you stay shallow and void of spiritual depth and be rootless? Will you neglect the daily "working out your salvation" that is required to make room for good seed? There is no good soil that happens by accident. Every patch of ground that produces a harvest has moved past the potential of what it could be into the area of becoming surrendered to the work of the Gardener. No good soil becomes that way by accident, and no good soil gets that way on its own.
So today, what sort of soil will you choose to be? Stay pliable and plowable, get rid of the rocks and lay some roots, get busy weeding the thorns and thistles out, and then....make some fruit!
