Good Soil: Part 2

During this years food plot planting season I had several challenges. One of those challenges was getting some food plots planted on a new lease I picked up this past year. This 700 acre land base had been clear cut three years prior. One of the big openings on the property that I wanted to plant was a log loading zone that was highly compacted. The fact that nothing had grown on this piece of ground for three years should have told me that I would have my work cut out. On the first day of September I dropped the disk onto the hard soil in hopes to cultivate the ground. My old Ford tractor and I made several passes across the opening only to barley scratch the surface in a few places. Since I had many other food plots to plant that day I cut my losses and moved on. I told the guys that were helping me plant, “Sow only rye grass in this field, it will grow anywhere.” Unfortunately, rye grass will not grow anywhere. I only got about a ten percent germination rate in that food plot. The soil was simply too hard and I did not prepare the ground good enough for it to properly receive the seed and produce a usable plot.

Matthew 13:3-4 “And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow; and when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up.”

The soil that Jesus is talking about in this part of the parable, the way side soil, is very similar to the soil I dealt with. They both were hard and highly compacted soil not allowing the seed to grow. Jesus compares this hard soil to a soul that is hard hearted, or what I like to call hard headed. Because of a hardened heart one does not want to listen to God’s Word, the Seed, and since he does not listen he can not understand what God is trying to teach him. This can apply to all walks of life. It applies to the one who is not a believer and ignores God’s calling of salvation. It applies to the Christian who is rebellious toward God and does not want to listen any more to what He has to say. It applies to the faithful man of God who lost his family in a car wreck and has turned his back on God in anger. The applications are endless in how our hearts are hardened toward God and His precious Word.

However, it is only by His Word that you can find peace. It is only through His Word that you can find hope. It is only with His Word that you can find help. When our hearts become hardened from God’s Word no matter the cause, it is only through God’s Word that those callused walls are broken down. You see folks we turn our backs on the only One and the only Source that could ever give us assistance. Don’t be hard hearted or hard headed in life, like that hard highly compacted red clay soil from Kemper County, MS. Listen to the Lord and allow His Word to find fertile soil in your heart today.

God Bless and Happy Hunting

Posted by Mark Newell