If you have read the last few blogs, I have written about preparing the soil of our hearts for good seed to grow. Last week, I wrote about keeping our hearts so that the enemy can’t sneak in and plant weeds that we will have to pull up later. This week, I am reading and thinking about the Parable of the Mustard Seed.
He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
Jesus was talking about the kingdom of heaven. But I will apply this principle to our hearts. When a farmer goes to the trouble to prepare his fields for planting, he doesn’t just go through and throw out random seeds to see which ones will grow. He plants what he desires to harvest. Not just tomatoes, but those big, red juicy delicious ones we have in South Georgia in the middle of summer. I love Tennessee, but the tomatoes don’t compare to the ones I grew up with in Georgia. And then there are the peas, so many varieties, and butter beans and squash and okra and cucumbers and corn and watermelons. I digress–I think I may need a vegetable garden instead of just flower pots–but back to the point.
We must be intentional about what we plant in the soil that we carefully tend in our hearts. What do we want to reap in our lives? More faith instead of fear and worry? More joy? More peace? Then we must carefully plant seeds that will cause these trees to grow in our lives. Don’t be random in your time that you study scripture. Prayerfully figure out what needs to grow in your life in this season and study the scriptures, memorize those scriptures and pray those verses. And watch as trees begin to grow in your life of faith and hope and joy and peace and blessing that will astound you. The intentional seeds that you plant in your heart will bear fruit in you life for years to come and change you in ways that you can’t imagine. What are you planting?