Practice What I Preach

It’s been a while since I’ve sat down to blog, but you are all under the same tyranny, I’m sure—the tyranny of the urgent. We have been in bible school this week, and while I love it, it does take time and preparation. And, of course, the preparation takes time, and we have to eat afterwards, and it’s late when we get home, etc., etc. (excuses, excuses)

Anyway, it’s my assignment to tell the bible story lesson at each session. The Rock Group, my young adults’ Sunday School Class, has or was volunteered to be the drama group portraying the lesson as I tell it. We have been teaching parables to the little people that are attending.

Sunday night, we studied the parable of the sower or maybe better named the parable of the 4 soils. Jesus told the story that a sower went out to sow a crop. Some seeds fell along the hard path which would not allow for any growth, but rather the birds came along and ate the seeds. The path was just the same as before getting the seeds.

Some seeds fell on rocky soil and sprang up quickly; but since the soil was so shallow, when heat came along, the plants with no roots quickly disintegrated. The soil was the same as before.

Some seeds fell among thorns and weeds and also sprang up, but they were quickly choked out since they could get no moisture or nutrients. The soil remained the same.

But some seeds fell on good soil. Roots went down and plants grew up and prospered, even 100 times as much as planted.

Jesus explained the parable. The seeds are God’s word and the soils are the hearts of the hearers. Some hearers’ hearts are hard and they do not retain any of the wisdom and quickly forget what they heard and stay the same. Some hearts are like the stony soil that have no depth, and when any hardships come, the words quickly die in them and the hearts remain the same. Some hearts are full of thorns like worries of life, busyness, and selfish desires, and when they hear, other thoughts are too strong and strangle the wisdom so they stay the same. But there are some hearts that listen to God’s word and seek to obey it and give it priority. Then the Word can multiply greatly.

I said all that to say that even though I was teaching that very lesson, my heart was leaning the way of the “busyness” of the thorns. I need to practice what I preach (be good soil).