Seed Planting

God is seriously kicking my butt. This 40 day study "A Call to Die" is amazing. Couple that with the fact that I'm also doing "Stepping Up", a Beth Moore study and there ya have it. A good old fashioned butt kickin'. So what does that mean exactly? Well, I've found myself seeped in His Word. I'm memorizing stuff and trying to allow it to seep into my heart directly from my head. Easier said than done. I do, after all, still live in this world.

For instance. One day last week I was working on one of the Stepping Up lessons and Beth had me running all around the Bible looking things up and, well, I got tired of it. She was onto the whole parable of the seed thing and there were all these blanks to fill in. I confess, I skipped them. You heard me. I skipped right over it. Well, apparently I was not supposed to skip it. The very next morning in A Call to Die he wrote about the very exact same parable. Of course. Who was I trying to kid? Obviously there was something I was supposed to learn here. So I went back - immediately - and filled in all the blanks and tried to see what it was that was so important. Duh. Holy Cow! Even now I'm still getting it. When we study all this stuff, what are we doing with it? Eating it up? Spitting it out? If we're eating it up is that a good thing? If you give someone a seed and they eat it, what happens to it? Nothing really. It makes its way out the other end and gets flushed. But if they plant it, now that's a whole different story. Then it becomes something that is nurtured and grown and harvested and used to feed yourself or others. How cool is that?

So how do we plant it, the Word? I've noticed before I can plant anything I have to till or turn the soil and in doing so inevitably there turns up something that doesn't belong there. Perhaps a grub worm, or a weed, or a rusty old nail or a snail or any number of things that would make it very difficult for anything to grow. So first I have to get rid of all that stuff like doubt and fear and lies and well, you get the picture. How do I do that? By talking to God and then, more importantly, by listening. I write Him a letter. And then I let Him write back. I pour it all out and then I just write my name and wait. When I think I hear something I start to write down whatever comes to mind. It is nothing short of fascinating. He always speaks to my heart.

So, back to planting the Word. I've noticed I'm really great at getting the lessons done. But what then? How do I get this planted in my heart that's been all tilled up and is now presumably ready to receive a seed? I don't have any big secret to share here. I've realized all I can do is ask Him to help me really grasp what He is trying to teach me. We'll see how that goes. I know one thing. I do not want to become rigid in this. I want God to use what I'm learning to change the world around me. Through love. Nothing else. What an adventure!!