It’s summertime in Nashville. Time for me to plant my flower pots that sit on the fireplace on our patio. These pots should have been planted already, but due to a hectic travel schedule, my gardening is behind this year.

I am not much of a gardener. I just don’t seem to have the knack–or the interest, to be honest–in working in the garden. Maybe it’s too hot. Maybe I just don’t know what I am doing. Probably a combination.

But I do love my flower pots and they add much needed color to our patio, so I plant them most years.

I will go to Home Depot next week and buy fresh soil, some flowers that the nursery has already started for me, some Miracle-Gro, come home and put it all in the pots, water it, and they will be so lovely. Instant gratification pots. They will grow more during the next few months and fill out, but I can have beautiful pots in a matter of a few hours.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could plant good seed in our hearts and yield results so quickly as well?

We know it doesn’t work that way. In Matthew 13, Jesus is in a boat on the Sea of Galilee and speaking to the crowd on the shore.

“And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” Matthew 13:3-9

If we want our hearts to be good soil, we must prepare our hearts daily to receive the word.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10

Just as a farmer must carefully till the hard soil in his field so that the seeds will have good soil, we too must allow God to gently till the soil of our hearts so that we can plant seeds in good soil, seeds of faith and hope and love and trust and courage and protection and provision -all promises in God’s Word. And then we must sow, faithfully sow the promises of God into our hearts daily as we read and mediate and memorize and pray through Scripture. And then we wait with great expectation for the seed planted in good soil to produce a rich harvest in our lives.

Jesus, I pray that we will be faithful to daily allow You to till our hearts and prepare good soil and may we be faithful to plant Your word in our hearts every day.