Thursday
Matthew 13:1-23
To me what is most relevant in this parable to our 21st Century reality is that of the seed that fell among the choking thorns: "the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth".
Worry is everywhere these days, on a personal, local, national, even world level. Rather than let these things come between us and God we can give them to God, put them in his hands. Like the AA bumper sticker: "Let go. Let God"
The "deceitfulness of wealth" may not seem, at first, to apply to us. After all, who among us is a Gates or a Buffet? But as members of the richest nation on earth we all have a multitude of "things" that demand our time and attention and distract us from the stillness - the contemplation that allows communion with God.
Look now, in this season of Lent, at the fields and open spaces around our city. The land seems to sleep, brown and empty, awaiting the sower’s hand. If possible, walk the bosque trails or ditch banks and listen for God in the silence. Or sit of a morning in the stillness of sunrise. Empty yourself like the land.
Ask what are the thorns in my life that choke out the seeds the Sower has planted in me? Know that our real wealth is the seed itself. Like these seemingly barren spaces, we ourselves can be planted, tended, and harvested - "yielding a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown."
Adele Davies
Matthew 13:1-23
To me what is most relevant in this parable to our 21st Century reality is that of the seed that fell among the choking thorns: "the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth".
Worry is everywhere these days, on a personal, local, national, even world level. Rather than let these things come between us and God we can give them to God, put them in his hands. Like the AA bumper sticker: "Let go. Let God"
The "deceitfulness of wealth" may not seem, at first, to apply to us. After all, who among us is a Gates or a Buffet? But as members of the richest nation on earth we all have a multitude of "things" that demand our time and attention and distract us from the stillness - the contemplation that allows communion with God.
Look now, in this season of Lent, at the fields and open spaces around our city. The land seems to sleep, brown and empty, awaiting the sower’s hand. If possible, walk the bosque trails or ditch banks and listen for God in the silence. Or sit of a morning in the stillness of sunrise. Empty yourself like the land.
Ask what are the thorns in my life that choke out the seeds the Sower has planted in me? Know that our real wealth is the seed itself. Like these seemingly barren spaces, we ourselves can be planted, tended, and harvested - "yielding a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown."
Adele Davies