dar334

I try to plant good seed in good soil, but sometimes I find myself planting bad seed in fertile soil.

Sometimes I am the taunter.  Sometimes I’m the tauntee.  I’m gaining knowledge, now I need to work on gaining wisdom.

I’m also a justifier.  Since I am now recognizing when I’m planting a bad seed, being a taunter, I can justify it as a step in the right direction as I head down the path toward wisdom.  As I’m sitting here thinking, typing, backspacing, able to do so because the bad seed I planted earlier landed right where I wanted it to.  Now I’m feeling bad because I planted a bad seed and it sprouted, and I’ve realized once again, how often I listen to the evil one, then came to the conclusion once again, how terribly hard to be “good”, to  employ wisdom; and for the record, knowledge is “knowing”, wisdom is doing”.  “Doing” is a concept that is terribly hard because too often the wisdom, “doing”, isn’t what we want.  We are far too often “doing” what we want even though we have the “knowledge” of what He wants and the ability to act with “wisdom”.  (I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do)

I came to all these conclusions this morning when I realized I was “discerning” the wrong voice ……. again.  This only goes to show that I desperately need to be involved in Bible study.  ALL. THE. TIME.  It was not the voice of God I was hearing, it was the voice of the evil one.  The evil one was taunting me to plant a bad seed because the end result would be to my benefit.  I was taunting the mouse into the trap with a tasty sample of peanut butter and the end result would benefit me.

I’ve struggled these past years with parables.  I’m a “literal” person, and when I hear “the sheep follow the shepherd because they know him and he knows them”, that’s precisely what I grasp.  Fluffy little sheep following behind the guy with long stick.  Of course they follow him, he feeds them and protects them with his long stick.  (Just like our forefathers beat off the bears with their loose leaf notebooks while walking to school uphill both ways)  Had John wrote “the disciples follow Jesus because he feeds them and protects them”, I would have gotten it a lot sooner.  And don’t even get me started on how yeast spoils all the whole batch!

A parable is a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson, as told by Jesus in the Gospels.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all wrote about a farmer who went out to sow some seed.  Some fell along the path and the birds came and ate it up.  Some fell in rocky places where there wasn’t enough soil so it sprouted then burnt up quickly.  Some fell in the thorns that ended up choking it out.  Some fell in good soil and produced a crop.  Although this was a valuable lesson if you’re a farmer, it was meant to be a valuable lesson in another way.  Thankfully the writers also told us the meaning to this story.

When someone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart.  This is the seed falling on along the path.  The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy.  But since they have no root, they last only a short time.  The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.  But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understand it.  This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.

This blog started with a ponder about the kind of seed that I plant.  It is possible, unfortunately, to plant weed seed in the good soil, yielding many weeds.   Since Satan is famous for doing the polar opposite of what God wants, then it’s totally believable that he plants bad seed in good soil.  This reminds me of the harvest, when the weeds will be gathered up and thrown into the fire.

Using my “wisdom” to lose myself in something constructive instead of picking at all the scabs of life.

-dar