Preparing The Soil To Receive
Hosea 10:12 Amplified Bible (AMP)
12Sow for yourselves according to righteousness (uprightness and right standing with God); reap according to mercy and loving-kindness. Break up your uncultivated ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, to inquire for and of Him, and to require His favor, till He comes and teaches you righteousness and rains His righteous gift of salvation upon you.
My mother wants a garden in the front yard where she can behold the beauty of God’s handiwork through her ability to admire annuals and perennials that will come up during different times in the year in a colorful array. Well, my husband awakened with a plan, he thought since the weather was good and I was fully recovered today, that today would be a great day to start preparing the ground for planting, since it had rained and the soil was softer and he felt the ground would be more pliable, and easier to manipulate and get ready for seeding. I wasn’t sure I was ready for this undertaking feeling better or not, but I went along with his plan, just because I happen to love him much more than a little and I try to get my mother the things that ensure her life here on earth is pleasant and filled with the joys that she desires. As we began to dig up the flower bed that previously housed holly bushes, we noticed something that the builders had used clay and sand and covered it with soil and that the roots from the previous residents still ran deeply throughout the flower bed. In its present state we understood that planting would be risky and unproductive, because the soil was nowhere ready to receive a new resident nor was it in condition to be utilized in the state that it is in. We had to turn the soil and begin to remove the things that were harmful and pull out things that were living there that would choke out the new plants that we want to plant in the flower bed and keep the harvest from manifesting in the manner in which we desired it to.
As I worked in the flower bed side by side with my husband, tilling the soil and breaking up the hard unusable ground, I sense God speaking and teaching a lesson in those moments. As loud and clear as one could hear, I understood that God was showing me that so many times we want God to plant in us and we want the harvest and to be seen as the beautifully kept Christian, but we don’t want to place ourselves in a position where God can till our life, to turn things upside if need be and shake things up and remove from us what is not useful to Him. It is difficult for us to concede to God pulling up and pulling out the bad habits and the ugly ways and thoughts that reside in us that keep us from being fruitful, productive and being a beautiful reflection of His Glory. Instead we want God to work around the thorns, the weeds, the roots of sin that are in us that we have allowed to linger in our lives, the excuses that we use to act out of His will. We don’t want Him to begin to dig up the things that we want that do not reflect His goodness and mercy in us; and certainly do not reflect salvation and repentance, or a person that is after God’s own heart. We want God to plant in us valuable and beautiful seeds that in the right environment would grow into ministry gifts, callings and discipleship that brings God Glory, but instead we want Him to work around the stony heart and the false personas and fake behaviors to plant in us anyway so that we can reap a harvest and be seen as beautiful in spite of what is under the soil choking out what is growing.
God says so often throughout His word that He wants to Bless us and He wants us to flourish and grow. God through our relationship with Christ wants to give us life more abundantly that is the reflection of His Glory and His love for us, but are we willing to allow Him to till the soil of our lives and rid us from the stuff that is harmful to our growth and progression, that can be detrimental and counterproductive to us reaping and receiving the harvest that God desires for us to have as a result of what He has planted within us. God is desirous to prepare us for sowing into us, and us growing for His glory, but the one thing about God is He will never force Himself upon us. He will never come into our garden uninvited, nor will He work the soil of our lives until we submit to Him doing so. The choice is ours if we really want the seeds to be planted and the flowers of His will to bloom and the fruits of the Spirit to grow. It is only when we allow those seeds to be planted in healthy soil do we reap the best harvest!
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