Preparation

"For thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns." Jeremiah 4:3

Good morning, dear friends,

If you enjoy gardening like I do, you probably enjoy looking through the gardening and landscaping magazines and getting ideas.  Of course, it always looks easier than the actual effort that went into planning that beautiful picture on the cover.  Hours of planning, preparation, and hard work preceeded the breathtaking result.  

Even though I am definitely an amateur gardener, I spend a lot of time on the front end of the project, than on the actual planting itself. 

I must spend time at the gardening store, picking out the right combination of flowers and bushes.  I must plan out my budget, and think about the right types of plants to grow in my less-than-fertile ground.  If money were not an option, or if our dirt were different, maybe this would not be such a difficult task, but it takes time. 

There is the backbreaking labour of breaking up the ground.  That is not fun, but it has to be done.  If I could just throw the plant so that the roots had contact with the ground and hope that it would grow, I would.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that.

There is the weeding as well.  A patch of ground that is overgrown, if not properly weeded and dealt with, will choke out any seeds that I would put there.  Again, if I could just throw the seed on the ground and hope for the best, I would, but that is not how it works, either.

The longest part of planting is not the planting itself, but the preparation.

As I was reading in Jeremiah today, the verse at the top of this blog caught my attention:  "Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns."  Since I have been thinking much about my garden in recent days, I was interested in this gardening analogy that God used towards the children of Israel.  Was God giving them gardening tips, or was He more concerned with the state of their hearts?

Obviously the children of Israel were well acquainted with sowing and planting.  They knew that having any crop that was worthwhile in their fields was a direct result in the effort that they fournished.  Their hard work was rewarded in the crop that they harvested.

For many years, the children of Israel during the time of Jeremiah had been serving false gods and practicing the futile religion of the peoples all around them.  Judgment was coming to God's people, but there was still time to make it right before the Lord.  Unfortunately, too many years directing their worship to false gods had hardened their hearts.  Nothing for God would grow there without a lot of hard work.

I find it interesting that God tells them to break up their own ground, to do the work of preparing their hearts before God.  The tools that God puts at their disposal are the same tools that He makes available to me today.

Repentance.  The first verse of Jeremiah 4:1 gives the first vital step in this process:  a change of heart:  "If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the Lord..."  They could not continue in their wickedness, and I cannot, either.  If I continue in my sinful ways and exclude God's truth in my life, I cannot hope to have a life that yields anything but sin.

Forsaking sin.  "...and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight..."  They had to not just agree with God that their sins were wrong, but they had to get rid of their sin entirely, and replace it with correct worship of God and God alone.  I must do the same in my own life.  

Recognizing God's Lordship over my life.  "And thou shalt swear, The Lord liveth, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory." (Jeremiah 4:2) The children of Israel could not continue to recognize other "gods" in their lives.  They had to surrender wholly to Him.  How much more do I need to remember the God that I serve in my everyday actions and attitudes.

These verses also remind me of the parable of the sower in Luke 8:11, where Jesus explains that the seed of the sower is the Word of God.  I know that I cannot grow in Christ apart from God's Word.  In order for God's Word to grow in my heart, and make lasting changes in my actions and attitudes, I must allow it to penetrate deep, place its roots and begin to grow.  I cannot hope to have God's Word grow in my heart, if I allow its "soil" to become hardened.

May God help me to plow up the "fallow ground" in my heart, so that I may live a life that is growing and producing a crop of righteousness for the Lord.

Time to break things up a bit...