Prayer for Good Ground

Sower of the word, you scatter generously and we receive poorly. We confess the hard path in us, where your word is heard and gone before it has settled. We confess the shallow rock, where we welcome what comforts and abandon what costs. We confess the thorns, the worries and wants that grow faster than anything you have planted.

Break up the hard places. Deepen the shallow ones. Cut back what chokes. We cannot do this to ourselves; we can only ask, and we do.

Make us people who hear and accept, who let your word in and let it stay. We do not ask for a hundredfold. We ask to be ground that is open to you this week, at work and at home, on the days when we feel nothing and on the days when we feel too much.

And we thank you that the seed is yours, that the growth is yours, and that the harvest is certain. Through Jesus Christ, who spoke this parable and who is himself the word, Amen.