Mark 4: The Parable of the Sower

   I just finished reading the Parable of the Sower from Mark 4 and got some really cool thoughts about it so I had to blog and expand on them before they went out of my head. So anyway, while I was reading I was thinking about how even though I know the "Good News," I still don't know a fraction of what God wants to teach me so not all of my heart is 'good soil.' That made me think about how to make good soil and I think it's really cool.
   When you want to plant a garden you make sure the soil is good first. This consists of three main steps: water, weed, fertilize.
  Weed, consists of finding the sin in you heart and rooting it out (read this post for a more detailed, whimsical description.) Obviously it is necessary to do this before you fertilize.
   Fertilizing is like like vitamins for the ground, it helps the soil become rich or able to produce good crops. There are many different ways we can fertilize are heart, but the ones that come to mind immediately are reading the Bible, praying, and fellowship. However, there is another way to fertilize that doesn't come in the usual package, compost. Compost is pretty much recycling gross garbage that is actually full of nutrients for your soil. You put certain kinds of trash in a bin and mix it up and it gets super hot and you have to stir it around with a shovel for weeks but when it's done, you never could never tell it was the garbage for a bit ago. For us, we can compost bad relationships, experiences, choices, ect. For a while it gets really tough, burning hot and shifting emotions, but in the end, the lessons He teaches us are so amazing it's hard to believe they came from the bad parts of your life! 
  Water isn't really a step that Has an order. You just make sure you water before and after you do anything else. You water before you weed so the ground is soft and the weeds will come up easier so since Jesus is the Living Water, you invite Him in before you 'weed' so it's less painful and ask Him to stay afterwards to give the new, weed free soil a good start! But in the end, if you don't continually water, all the good you've grown will die. In the same way, when we don't spend time in the presence of JC, our relationship dies and becomes religion. Ick!
   So, now concludes my new realization about the parable of the sower. Thanks for reading! :)