Wednesday, 1/29/13
Our Lord’s parable
described four different ways we can react to hearing the word of God. By “the
word of God” Jesus would have in mind not only the word of the Bible. He would
also mean any occurrence that would make you think of doing good things, such as
aiding the poor, giving time to prayer, or opening your mind to the truths you have been blocking out.
The four types of
ground on which the seeds fall represent four states of mind a person might be
in when God calls.
The path where the
seed cannot take root represents a non-serious attitude from which meaningful thoughts are
brushed aside.
It put me in mind of
the Scott Fitzgerald novel “Tender is the Night.” In it a fine young doctor,
Dick Divers, was adopted by a hyper-wealthy family, and he was seduced into
their drinking and partying way of life. His decline was summed up by a shocked
former admirer who said, “Oh, Dr. Divers, you are no longer a serious
scientist!” We should not fritter away our capacity to be serious Christians.
The rocky ground on
which the seed falls is a thin layer of soil overlaying a rock pan. Seed there
springs up immediately, then, they wilt from not putting in deep roots to
moisture. We are like that when we go from enthusiasm to enthusiasm, never
thoroughly putting God’s inspirations into action.
The ground given over
to thorns and weeds describes you if you have vices or addictions that squeeze
out any fitful efforts on which you embark.
The ground whose
crop is thirty, sixty, or a hundred times more numerous than the scattered seed
from which it sprung represents the great amount of good which God inspires all
around us. It doesn’t make the gossip columns, but thank God it is there.
No comments:
Post a Comment