Hosea 10:12

Hosea 10:12

Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers his righteousness on you. I have prayed this prayer many times throughout my life asking God to help me break up my unplowed ground. I thought a lot on this this morning as I was out working in our corn patch. The corn patch is new, just broken up this spring. Usually we wouldn't plant so quickly after plowing because fields need time to season after plowing. They need the winter snow, along with the freezing and thawing that breaks up the large chunks of sod left after plowing. Then they need to be reworked to uproot all the weeds and stubborn grass that sprouts with the warm rains and temps in the spring. This field was plowed with that intention in mind, to let it sit and mellow, but the spring rains came and it became too much a temptation for my husband to resist. So into the ground the corn went. The field looked kinda ready... Fast forward a month and we have a little issue with the weeds. Ok, a big issue! This morning found me in the corn patch roto-tilling between the rows of corn plants. It is a big job. I would guess the field is about an acre. It doesn't look so big when you are driving up to it, but when on foot, it seems unending. All this to say new fields take lots of work if they are to produce a crop, and isn't it interesting that to grow a crop first something must be broken? Spiritual lesson in here somewhere me thinks!  As I worked this field my thoughts went to my own unplowed ground. You know, those places in my life that are still wild, not yet yielded over to God. I wish I could say my life is totally submitted to Christ, but that would be a lie. I find I only surrender a bit at a time, and somedays I even take back what I had previously given over. Sad but true. As I worked row after row this morning, I got to thinking if my ground looks anything like this, perhaps there is wisdom to only plow up a piece at a time, otherwise I would be nothing but a mess of deep weeds with no fruit at all.  Achieving good productive ground takes hard work and time, seasons of time. I don't know bout you, but it seems my unplowed ground acts just the same as a new field under cultivation for the first time, full of wild things with deep roots that don't want to give up easily.  I thought of all the things I have asked God to grow in me, in this ground that I have just sitting around wild and unproductive.  A faithful heart, deeper love, wisdom, patience, greater trust, deeper faith, more joy, all this and so much more. I want so much more of God.  When I look at how much work it takes to soften my heart and unearth my selfish ways, it makes me happy to recoginze there are some places in my heart that are completely surrendered to God, ground that is soft and mellow, able to produce great fruit. At the same time I am aware there are many wild areas, still hard and untouched by a plow that will soon need my attention, and there are a few places where I am newly broken, still full of weeds and grasses that have to be worked out, but also so full of promise of the crops that will be grown there.  Newly broken, now that doesn't sound very fun, but the fact is before anything good can grow, God needs me to be newly broken. Well, I'm thinking its time to break up some hard ground. So worth it. Here's to a bountiful harvest!