learnaboutgod

Many people read the parable of the Sower and the Seed in Matthew 13 and see the seed as us. We grow or wither or get choked by weeds. It’s easy to picture that parable this way. But Jesus explains that seed is not us. The seed is the Word of God that is planted in us, and depending on how we receive it, and cultivate it, it withers, gets snatched, is choked or grows.

Whether we succeed in growing depends on whether the seed of the Word of God grows in us. God is a farmer. He raises crops of good fruit in people. The Word of God is how He does it. We can be dirt or fertilizer—it doesn’t matter, as long as we receive the Word, protect it, and allow its promises to grow in us and take over our barren field.

Many consumer fads ago, the best food in the opinion of kids was what the astronauts ate.  It was called Astronaut food and it came in little sticks.  It was a complete nutritious meal and it was a chance to eat something that tasted like chocolate for lunch.  The idea was that a whole meal was condensed into this little bar, and you could survive on it if you had to.

When Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, He taught them The Lord’s Prayer.  It is like God’s astronaut food.  Everything you essentially need to understand about what’s important to God in how to live and think and know Him is set forth in one small package of highly condensed truth.  If you were in space and could only take one kind of food and one short passage of the Bible to survive on, astronaut food and The Lord’s Prayer might be good choices.

Some of us might believe that even if God loves us, we are still ordinary and have only modest expectations of an ordinary life. If that is the case, it is necessary to realize that it’s possible to be humble, and still seek a great life in God.

The question for us is always, “Where are we growing?” Are we satisfied with a being a pine cone when God has in His purposes for us a full-grown pine tree that produces many pine cones, and provides shelter for many birds as well? It’s easier to be and remain a pinecone, but our God is life and life goes forward and grows. Another important consideration is that the more we allow God to do in our lives, the more He will be in our lives, and we are more likely to know Him. Knowing Him in turn causes further growth.