Good Soil
The parable of the sower ends with a promise about what a receptive heart can yield.
Mark 4:20NIV
Mark 4:20. After explaining the path, the rocky ground and the thorns, Jesus describes the last soil. Those who are like seed sown on good soil hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop, thirty, sixty or a hundred times what was sown.
Notice that the good soil does nothing exotic. It hears and it accepts. It does not manufacture the seed or force the growth. Its only virtue is that it lets the word in and lets it stay. The birds, the rocks and the thorns are all forms of not letting it stay.
By Wednesday the week's first resolutions are often under pressure. The word you heard on Sunday has met the path of distraction, the rock of shallow enthusiasm, the thorns of worry and busyness. This verse is a midweek invitation to be soil again. Open the Bible, hear, accept, and leave the yield to God. He is not asking for a hundredfold from you today. He is asking for ground that stays open.
More in scripture
Be Still, and Know
A short command from an old psalm asks us to stop, and tells us why.
Be Still, and Know
An ancient line, written for a frightened people, asks us to stop before it asks us to understand.
Peace That Stands Guard
When worry crowds in, an old letter offers a different way to carry it.