Sowing Good Seed

“Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. . . . The sower sows the word.” (Mark 4:3, 14)

God is a gardener. And when He made man, He made him a gardener too. He gave him fingers to dig in the dirt, fingers for sandy loam to run through. He gave him taste buds and a growling stomach to drive him into the dirt to plan, plant, and wait. He gave him eyes to behold the beauty of peach orchards, corn fields, and fat red tomato slices on the white plate before him. God made man with a hoe and a rake and a shovel already waiting for him in the shed out back.

God Himself is a sower of seed. His way is the way of life. He dreams of life, plans life, prepares for life, and makes life happen. When He makes dirt, He makes it for seeds to grow in. When He makes it rain, He rains life on His seed. When He calls for the sun to come out and blaze, the hot sun that sometimes also scorches and kills, He is calling forth the life in the seed. When He pulls weeds, leaving them to dry up and disintegrate and turn back into the dust from which they sprang, He is pulling for the seed. He does all He does for the life of the seedling: nurturing, caring, tilling, fertilizing, watering, praying for life and health and a good return for His labor.

Want to see life flourishing at your fingertips? Sow the Word of God into it. Do all you do to nurture the success of the Word of God in your life. The voice of God called forth all things into existence, and it is nothing other than the voice of God that brings forth life and goodness and causes all things to thrive. Beautiful fruit will come—through wind and rain and summer sun—where the Word of God takes root. If we want to see life and love and happiness and fruitfulness in our lives, in our families, in our world—in our “garden”—it will only come by way of the seed of the Word of God sown and grown and nurtured over time. When we pray according to the Word of God, think, dream, plan, work, speak, feel, and act according to the Word of God—when every square inch of the dirt floor of our lives is covered with the seed of the Word of God—“eye has not seen, nor ear heard” what God has in store for those who love Him in such a way.

“Great God in heaven above, we give thanks this day for Your sowing Your seed of love in our hearts and bringing forth the fruit of love for You in our lives. Thank You for the Word of God in which we find life, and thank You for causing it to take root in us. Grant to us life and fruit through the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and make us good and hearty sowers of the Word ourselves, in our own lives and in the lives of all whom our lives touch. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”