A Parable

Mark 4:1-20

"It's not what happens to you, it's what you do with what happens to you"

Remember the parable about the sower? I've heard many takes on this one. Some feel that the only seed that makes it is the seed on good ground. In other words if you are not good ground you will not receive eternal life. Another view is that some seed lives (has eternal life) but produces nothing. Still another says that all seed is meant to grow regardless, and that the ground represents different stages in a person's life. That is to say this: we all become good ground when the ground is tilled. Pain is indicated in this point of view for it is never pleasant to be tilled. God would need to dig up the weeds, soften the ground and remove all the stones that prevent a good crop.

I do not presume to know which interpretation is the correct one. I do prefer the last one but you must decide and rightfully divide the word for yourself with the help of the Holy Spirit as indicated in Scriptures. But for now let's look at the passage.

Jesus gave this for understanding:

• Some people are like seed sown along a path. Satan comes and steals what was sown.
• Other seed falls on rocky places, they receive the word with joy, but they have no root. Trouble and persecution causes them to quickly fall away.
• When seed falls on thorny ground, worries, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things chokes the seed and it becomes unfruitful.
• Then there is the seed that is sown on good soil. It produces a crop of thirty, sixty, even a hundred times.

I'm an incurable optimist. My heart leans toward the belief that God wants us all to live eternally with Him. So my hope is that those who hear the message of the cross regardless of where they are, overcome Satan's lies, become strong under persecution, turn worry and fear over to God's care and dump the lies found in wealth and doing things their way. That He will till the ground until it is free of all debris and soft enough to receive and produce a hundred times sown.

If you have agreed with my conclusion then be at peace with life. Regardless of what happens to us in this life know God is somehow in control and watches over us continually. Remember we have a God who loves us, one who has prepared a place for us when it's all over.

"It is not what happens to you, it's what you do with what happens to you."