The Terrain of My Soul
By Nathan
A few weeks ago, my community held a great men’s retreat. During one of the times of prayer, our retreat master read us the parable of the sower and the seed.
For those who haven’t read it recently, it goes like this:
A sower went out to sow. As he scattered his seed, some of it fell on the path. The birds of the air came down and ate all the seed. Some seeds fell on rocky soil. It sprang up immediately, but then the sun came up and the shoots withered and died because they didn’t have depth of root. Some seeds fell among the weeds and grew up alongside them, but the weeds choked the good seeds out. Finally, some seeds fell on good soil, and they bore fruit, 100, 60, and 30 fold.
The retreat master told us to pray about this parable. Specifically, he told us to ask God to show us the state of our souls.
Examining the map
During quiet time, I asked Jesus, “Show me my soul.” Almost immediately, a mental image of my property in Dearing, GA came to mind. I live on about half an acre in the country.
The first thing that struck me about this image is that my property is not a homogenous piece of land.
I have a chicken coop and run which the chickens scratch into a desert wasteland. The driveway is a half-circle gravel path where some grass attempts to poke through. The edge of our property abuts a forest, so it’s basically a wilderness. Also, my wife loves to garden, so I have four big raised bed gardens in the back, a flower garden in the front, and another shade garden around the side.
What struck me about this image is that my soul has every single kind of terrain from the parable.
A Birds Eye View
I’ve always thought of this parable as an all-or-nothing proposition. My soul is either stony ground, weedy ground, barren path, or fertile ground.
But Lord wanted me to have a more nuanced view. Some areas of my life are more fruitful than others. Some things cause me anxiety. Sometimes, I just don’t understand what God is doing in my life, or how to live out the Gospel in a concrete way. Suffering tends to throw me off track.
I need to recognize these different parts of my life and see that not all areas need to be dealt with in the same way.
Chickens of DOOM!
The chicken coop seemed to represent the path where the seed fell and the birds came to eat all the seed. The parallel is pretty obvious. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a chicken coop full of chickens, but when food hits the hard-packed ground, the chickens come clucking. The chickens devour just about anything that I throw in there.
In my prayer, it seemed that this area represented places in my heart where I’ve let sin build a nest. One particular sin I struggle with is envy. God keeps trying to sow seeds of contentment, but those envy chickens run out right away and snatch the seeds right up. Not a single one stands a chance. I find it hard to understand how God could expect me to be content when He gives others around me more than He gives me.
How do I deal with this type of ground? In real life, I won’t get rid of the chickens. Farm-fresh eggs are too delicious. But in my spiritual life, I need to actively look for areas of sin that prevent God’s word from bearing fruit in my life.
One of my favorite prayers in this regard is, “God, please reveal to me the beam in my eye. Please give me Your Living Water to Cleanse me.” More than once, this prayer has revealed a previously hidden area of sin. This allows me to take advantage of the sacrament of Confession and take other steps to eliminate the sin.
Rock Collection
My driveway is rocky ground. When I drive over the gravel, I hear a satisfying crunchy sound. The weight of my vehicle grinds any grass desperately trying to grow there to pieces. I thought of the rocks as my woundedness. Each rock represents a hurt, some little wound that has caused a little hardness in my heart.
The seed takes root in this rocky soil quickly, because of the joy I feel in my wounded heart when I experience the love of God. But if some other suffering comes along, these hurts flair up and wither my joy and hope.
While I need my driveway, I don’t need to hang onto the stony hurts I’ve collected through the years. I can seek healing through counseling, forgiveness, and prayer. God can transform rocky soil, but that means digging up the rocks and putting them somewhere appropriate (like the heart of Jesus).
The Thorny Wilderness
Georgia has these crazy thorn vines that grow as thick as my thumb straight up until they hit a tree branch they can grab. The thorns are monsters and shred clothing or skin with equal ease.
I have this wilderness in my heart that shreds my peace. I have more than one, but the one that came to mind was my finances. (The wilderness is right next to the chicken coop. Coincidence? I think not.) I have five children, my wife stays home to care for them, and God has called me to serve the poor. Money gets tight.
In the midst of this, God has done marvels of provision. Everything from a house that we can afford to vehicles straight up given to us, God has been trying to plant seeds of trust in His provision. But I worry about providing for my family. I worry about retirement. I worry about affording college for my kids, or even what to do if one of my vehicles breaks down. This anxiety is living with the threat detector constantly going off in my mind, even if only at a very low level.
One practice that I’ve recently learned to help uproot these thorny vines is reframing. The idea behind reframing is that every challenge God gives me is an opportunity to grow in some virtue. I just need to try to see the opportunity that God is hiding in the challenge. Reframing allows me to rip those thorns of anxiety out by the roots and turn the wilderness into fertile ground.
Earlier this week, my refrigerator stopped cooling. This could be a huge, unexpected expense, a major cause for stress and worry. But God has taken me through a number of these kinds of challenges and I’ve gotten pretty good at appliance repair. By the end of the day, I’d gone to the appliance parts store, purchased a replacement evaporator fan, and installed it in the fridge. I think I still have to replace the control board, but I’ve ordered the right piece and should be able to replace it over the weekend. Reframing has transformed my anxiety into an opportunity to exercise mastery and practice fixing things.
Gardens of Delight
My wife’s flower garden is a source of joy for everyone in our neighborhood. Our friends walk up and down our road and frequently comment on the beautiful flowers she grows there. I’ve also built her four raised bed gardens where she grows whatever is in season: strawberries, kale, basil, beans, peas, tomatoes, and this year Carolina Reapers (the second hottest pepper in the world.)
The gardens represent places in my life that are bearing good fruit. Things like spiritual direction, my daily prayer time, my work as a fundraiser at the food bank, and parenthood, are places where God is bringing forth good fruit from the work of my hands.
But gardening takes work. When I built our house, not much vegetable gardening got done, and we didn’t get much produce. This points at a spiritual truth. I can’t sit back and enjoy the fruit of a spiritual garden without putting in the effort and attention that will ensure another harvest. I have to watch out for pests, weed, plant new seeds, water, and fertilize.
The gardens point out that spiritual fruitfulness is the result of cultivating good spiritual habits. I need daily time in prayer. I need spiritual direction, the sacrament of confession, a men’s bible study. I need community. These things will only continue producing fruit in my life as long as I’m investing the time and attention my soul needs to flourish.
Encouragement and Warning
I hope you found this meditation very encouraging the way I did. My soul is not a static thing, but is constantly developing based on the way I think and act. By God’s grace, I can do something about the areas in my soul where the Word of God, the seed that Jesus plants, is not producing the fruit that it should. My current state is not my eternal destiny.
Yet, there’s also a word of caution. Any fruit in my life is a gift God gives me from the seed that He has planted in my heart. If I neglect my spiritual health and the good spiritual practices I’ve developed over the years, I will become a wilderness again.
One of my favorite scriptures is “Better the man who can conquer himself than the man who can conquer cities.” (Proverbs 25:28) God told Adam to cultivate the earth and subdue it. The earth that I’m called to cultivate and subdue is not just that piece of property in Dearing. It’s me. I’m the earth that I’m supposed to cultivate and subdue. Why? So I can bear fruit that will last.
If you want to hear more about how God brought me back from the dead, check out Demoniac, now available on Amazon.
