Good Seed, Good Soil, Good Fruit

“But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred. . . . But these are . . . those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.” (Mark 4:8, 20)

Nothing beats rich, loamy dirt, horse-manured, compost-fed, and broken-up two feet deep. Well-watered and well-drained, warmed by the sun and comforted by a blanket of mulch to hold moisture down and weeds at bay, such soil is a seed-bed for wonderful things. Wonderful fruit-bearing things.

Like apricot trees and watermelon vines, nine-foot-long tomato “trees” and elephant-ear summer squash. Things like okra spears thrust into the sky and gigantic jewel-drops hanging from the eggplant plants. Wonderful things like grapevines filled with bright and juicy reds ready to explode with flavor, green beans poled and granny smith apples stretching a tree’s limits. It all begins with good soil.

Christ makes it clear: Where the Spirit and the Word of God are, there is such a thing as “good soil,” and there is such a thing as “good fruit.” There may be variations in quantity from vine to vine or branch to branch, but good soil results in good fruit. When the fruit is poor or non-existent, check soil conditions.

What makes for good soil? Not only ears that hear but hearts that receive the Word of God for the truth, law, and promise that it is. Not only lips that confess but hearts that embrace and love and obey. Pray for such hearts, long for them, work for them, and use the organic material of the Word of God to enrich them. Such hearts are tilled and turned over, clods broken up, stones cast out. Such hearts are made soft over time and with experience rather than hardened and left fallow through disuse (or misuse). Such good hearts receive the Word of God and produce.

What is the fruit? The apostle Paul gives us this list as representative: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Those who are full of the Spirit are full of these things, and those who are full of the Spirit are drinking from the well of living water the Spirit has authored, that is, the Holy God-breathed Scriptures. Pray for this fruit as well, look for it, hope for it, long for it. Pray for a never-ending supply of love for God and love for others. Pray for God-given peace externally (between you and others) and internally (in your own breast). Pray for increasing crops—the hundredfold variety—of charity and goodness and purity and faith. Pray for the blessed fruit of patience produced by trials, itself producing perfections and completeness. But in all your prayers remember these things spring only from the seed of God’s Word planted in the receptive soil of the heart.

“God, grant us such fertile hearts as receive Your Word and find it growing healthy, fruit-bearing vines that extend to every corner of our lives. Fill us with Your Spirit, and by Your Word produce within us the fruit of the Spirit, dropping from our branches and lying all about us on the ground. Give us ears to hear, hearts that accept, lives that bear fruit—hundredfold—we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”