Which type of soil am I? All of them! On any given day, I might be a sponge, soaking up every word, or I might be a stone, refusing to take in any word, or somewhere in between. I might be all three in a single hour! It’s not so much about what kind of person I am, as it is about how pliable I am to receive God’s word at any given moment. Being pliable is work. Being flexible takes thought. Being receptive is a decision I must make all day every day.

When I find myself closed, I ask myself what’s going on inside me that’s making me resistant. What’s eating at me? If I can identify what’s rubbing me wrong, maybe I can set that aside or even resolve it, so I can move from inflexible to flexible. I can once again become a sponge, soaking up every word of God in every pore of my being.

Text:

When a great crowd gathered and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable: “A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell on the path and was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. Some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered for lack of moisture. Some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. Some fell into good soil, and when it grew, it produced a hundredfold.” As he said this, he called out, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” Then his disciples asked him what this parable meant. He said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God; but to others I speak in parables, so that ‘looking they may not perceive, and listening they may not understand.’