Either I am at a critical and deep moment in my life or I am just deep in it!
It seems at ever turn in the road I am being challenged to pursue God with a higher intensity than ever before, yet struggling with what are the final “earning moments” in my life as well. If I am ever going to “make it”, I better do it now. I don’t think I have ever been at this reality in this way. Age is a wonderful catalyst for action, yet action and age are contrarians.
The thing that causes me to view this as more than a whim (and I have known whims) is the level of insight that seems to come at me each morning as I read the Word. Every verse seems new in its depth of meaning.
Just yesterday, (you might need to read that entry) Luke 8:1-8 (NKJV) seemed to encourage me to press on with the things that I was “doing” with the expectation, that even if the majority of my efforts might have fallen on bad soil, there was the promise that a portion would prosper and that alone would return much more than the volume of failed seeds sown in my life. I obviously was needing encouragement!
Then this morning, I experienced one of those moments like the one who gave his life to climbing the corporate ladder only to reach the top of that ladder, and find that it had been leaning against the wrong building. Somehow, I simply hadn’t understood the word “seed” at its highest level. Sure, the Word is living and often brings a relevant message that the human writer may have never intended, but this morning was one of those “duh” moments, like how did I miss that?
“The seed is the word of God,” plainly proclaims this ancient physician Luke in verse 11. Life is not about doing, but about sharing the word of God. No, not Bible thumping but in some way sowing His thoughts in the hearts and minds of friends, neighbors and strangers, both by word and deed. I have an abundant deeds list, a rather impressive resume of community leadership, but I wonder how many in the last decade of outreach to the community have truly “heard” the word of God? I mean a God breathed moment from something that came out of my lips, or entered their hearts and not necessarily through some verbatim scriptural quote?
Even as Luke defined his four agrarian categories of crop results, I found myself wondering if I really fell into category three:
#1 Those who hear, but fall short of keeping the word near their heart, having it stolen before they even know redemption.
#2 Those who receive the word with joy, (caught up in emotion) but allow no season to put down roots and thus also fall away.
#3 Those entertaining a life with Christ but as they “go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures and they do not mature.”
#4 Those with noble and good hearts, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.”
Category one and two, I fortunately have had the grace to escape, however, number three defines the very culture in which I live, and is almost a norm among peers, many of whom are aging, but truly few maturing.
“Those with noble and good hearts… who persevere? “Oh, Lord I want to be in that number when the saints go marching in!”