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Maybe you have found yourself in a situation that has caught you off guard. In the aftermath, while looking at the shattered pieces of your life, you’re wondering how could this have …
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Maybe you have found yourself in a situation that has caught you off guard. In the aftermath, while looking at the shattered pieces of your life, you’re wondering how could this have happened? In Matthew 13:3-4, we read this parable, “A farmer went out to sow his seed.” The story goes on to state, “As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.”
The birds purposely chose to eat what was easy for them to devour. This is not a mistake, it is deliberate. These devouring birds represent an enemy who is seeking out the most vulnerable, the easiest prey.
You can’t devour something or someone and still save it. This is also a form of deception that our first parents faced in the garden. Unsuspectingly, Eve was separated from her husband, and the great deceiver used this vulnerable moment to place doubts in her mind. These doubts were not there before, but the power of suggestion is one of the best snares Satan has to separate us from God.
There is a basic principle to life and growth. For a seed to grow and flourish, it has to remain in the ground. If someone uses their influence to draw someone away from God, they are disconnected from the “Source of Life” — they cannot survive. Disconnected from the tree of life, our first parents began to die. It is in Jesus that we have life. He says in John 15:5, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.”
It’s the seed that stays in the ground that grows. It is the person who stays connected to God who becomes more like him. There is no shortcut to this process.
Maybe you feel that you have come to the end of your rope and God has turned his back on you. You see no possibility of having peace and happiness again. If someone has “devoured” your hope, you can start again, by accepting God at his word. Right now, if you hear his voice speaking to you, he is calling you to give yourself to him again — to reconnect yourself to the one who is the vine — the one who gives you life. You can have a new start, my friend, if you ask him to “plant the seeds” of faith, hope and love in your heart again. He says in Revelations 21:5, “I am making everything new.”
(Steve Nelson is the pastor at Seventh Day Adventist Church in Powell.)
