How is your soil??

Have you ever had to dig up the ground to lay a path or start a garden?  If you aren't the owner of heavy equipment you know that it can be quite the task. Breaking up ground that has been sitting for a long while. driven over, walked over, wet down by the rain and hardened by time can take a long time to break up and get to the state that you need to accomplish the mission. Where in your life have you allowed the challenges you've faced and the grind of the everyday to harden your soil?

 

Hosea 10:12 Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.”

^{Matthew 13
3} And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
⁴ And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
⁵ Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
⁶ And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.
⁷ And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:
⁸ But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
⁹ Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

¹⁸ Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower.
¹⁹ When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.
²⁰ But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it;
²¹ Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.
²² He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.
²³ But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

2 Esdras 8:41

³⁸For indeed I will not think on the disposition of them which have sinned before death, before judgment, before destruction: ³⁹But I will rejoice over the disposition of the righteous, and I will remember also their pilgrimage, and the salvation, and the reward, that they shall have. ⁴⁰Like as I have spoken now, so shall it come to pass. ⁴¹For as the husbandman soweth much seed upon the ground, and planteth many trees, and yet the thing that is sown good in his season cometh not up, neither doth all that is planted take root: even so is it of them that are sown in the world; they shall not all be saved. ⁴²I answered then and said, If I have found grace, let me speak. ⁴³Like as the husbandman's seed perisheth, if it come not up, and receive not thy rain in due season; or if there come too much rain, and corrupt it: ⁴⁴Even so perisheth man also, which is formed with thy hands, and is called thine own image, because thou art like unto him, for whose sake thou hast made all things, and likened him unto the husbandman's seed. 
#devotionals