“ . . . . for the truth didn’t sink deeply into his heart.” (Mt. 13:21 TPT)
As I read through the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13, my attention is captured by this wording in The Passion Translation: sink deeply into his heart. This inspires me to engage my imagination with this passage in a different manner, to visualize it through a different lens.
In the past, I’ve felt a mixture of grateful encouragement and conviction when meditating on this parable and the explanation that Jesus shares with his disciples. In the four scenarios provided in the parable, only one scenario involves the removal of the seed from the heart — the first soil/heart where the seed remains only on the surface. In the other three scenarios, the seed remains in the heart. Granted, two of the three other seeds experience results that appear to be less than desired, but they do remain in the heart. It is only in one scenario where the seed remains in the heart and experiences abundant fruitfulness; however, we do not know how this abundant fruitfulness comes about. That is a mystery.
As I contemplate this passage, I think of my own garden — the seeds I’ve planted, the plants that have survived, the plants that have thrived, and those that have produced fruit of some kind. I’ve planted some seeds that never came up at all. I’ve planted other seeds that came up and grew into solid plants, but didn’t produce fruit. Some plants produced lovely fruit the first season, and others didn’t produce fruit until after being in the ground for several years. I’ve learned that some seeds/plants need time to produce fruit. This is where my grateful encouragement comes from: as long as the seed remains in the soil, there is hope that it will produce fruit of its kind in time.
As long as the seed remains in the heart, there is always hope. “Sinking deeply into the heart” takes time, much time, even decades. I understand things about myself and God today that I was truly clueless about 40 or 50 years ago. This “fruitfulness” isn’t instant, which is unfortunate for those who don’t want to wait, who desire it all NOW. The fruit grows as the relationship with God deepens. When I consider the soil of my heart, I recognize that the surface soil is always softer than the packed-down soil underneath it. As a result, there can be an initial fruitfulness (which may be so tiny that I can’t even see it) that is prevented from being the “30, 60 or 100 times what was sown” because of the harder soil underneath. As the hard soil underneath gets slowly broken apart by the experiences of life and grace, the seeds can begin to work their roots further down and deeper into the heart. What may have initially produced a 15 times harvest, may now be a 30 times harvest. With even more life lived and grace received, the 30 times slowly turns into a 60, and eventually into a 100 times what was sown.
My old lens saw this parable in terms of quantity: 30, 60, 100, size, numbers, etc. As a result, I always felt a sense of conviction about how little fruit I perceived to be in my life and being. But perhaps quantity is not the miraculous part. Perhaps the unimaginably, miraculous part is the fact that the fruitfulness (or harvest) of each seed that remains in our heart continues throughout our years, moving deeper into our hearts with time, and becoming fuller, sweeter, and richer in quality with each season of our life. Perhaps the producing of the “100 times” harvest has occurred over many decades with the fruit of each harvest season becoming more and more pure. Is it possible that this kind of fruitfulness can occur in a vacuum? I think not; it will be felt by everyone who comes into contact with it, everyone who sees and experiences it.
Something to consider.
but love is there, hovering over my soul 