The Sower

THE SOWER — The Story Behind the Son: For a long time, when I read Jesus' Parable of the Sower, I thought I was supposed to identify myself as the good soil. I wanted to believe that somehow I was the person who had received God's Word. I realized that, at different times in my life, I have been every kind of soil. I have been the hardened road where the seed could not penetrate. I have been the rocky ground where I received something but had no depth to sustain it. I have been the soil among the thorns, where the cares of this world, fear, pride, selfishness, and the things I wanted to hold onto competed with God's Word. I could not make myself good soil. I could not manufacture spiritual life. I could not produce God's harvest through my own strength. I had been looking at the soil, but Jesus began showing me the Sower. The Sower came looking for me. He sowed while the ground was hard. He sowed while there were rocks. He sowed while there were thorns. He kept coming toward me even when I was unable to produce what He was asking for. The Sower never stopped sowing. The seed is the Word of God—the Word of the kingdom. The miracle is that the Sower continues to give what produces life even when the ground is dead: God always moves first. Grace comes before our response. Relationship begins with Him. I come because He came looking for me. I bring Him the truth about myself. My hard places, My rocks, My thorns, My failures, My fears, My pride, My brokenness. He invites me to come as I am and allows His life to begin transforming me. Jesus says that the good soil produces a harvest—thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold. They are not all the same. And Jesus does not condemn the thirtyfold because it isn't a hundredfold. That taught me not to compare my harvest with someone else's. The seed is His. The life is His. The increase is His. My responsibility is not to manufacture the harvest. My response is to hear, receive, trust, abide, and allow His Word to take root. This doesn't mean doing nothing. Receiving God's Word means allowing it to take root in us, trusting Him, abiding in Him, and letting His life produce fruit. It also brought the imagery of the parable into the story of Jesus Himself. The thorns that once represented what choked the life within me became a picture of the crown He willingly wore. The hard places that could not receive life reminded me of the body that was pierced for me. Everything that stood between God and me was met by the One who made a way where I could not make a way. It was always about the Sower. And where I could not produce life, He brought life. Where I could not make the ground fruitful, He brought me into relationship with Himself. Where I could not create the harvest, He gave the increase. So the prayer at the end of this song is: “Keep sowing Your Word in me.” Take every stone. Pull every thorn. Heal every hardened place. Let Your life bear fruit. Not for my glory, but Yours—and for our good. Because the harvest belongs to You.