The gospel this coming Sunday is called “The Parable of the Sower”. You may remember that it’s about a farmer sowing grain. The grain fell on the earth in four ways. For our purposes the most important place the grain fell was on well tended land with a deep soil. Naturally the grain that fell there did the best and produced the most.
In the parable the grain stands for the word of God. Jesus is telling his hearers that when a person is ready to hear, when they have done the proper preparation, what they hear has the most impact. It becomes life changing as opposed to something that sounds nice to the unprepared and may or may not have an impact.
Now Jesus loves us and has been resurrected so that we might have eternal life. That’s a done deal. But in order for each of us to benefit to the maximum our relationship with him some homework is helpful. It’s like anything else. The better prepared we are the more successful we become.
So if you would like to prepare the soil for the seeds, think about spending a little time in prayer, and perhaps dig out that Bible and give your relationship with God some thought. You never know, it might make a difference. After all, we are in relationship with the sower for eternity.