I was blessed by an interesting insight into the parable of the Sower of the seed and it came from a completely unexpected direction. Yesterday I mowed the lawn and when I was finished I went inside to get cleaned up and eat supper (my fantastic wife made Asian Tacos YUM!) I got so distracted by the food and other household chores that I forgot that I’d planned on putting out some new grass seed. Since it wasn’t quite dark yet I went back outside to sow the grass seed around the lawn. While I was spreading this seed the parabale of the sower who sows seed in the different soils kept running through my mind. I fantasized about what it would have been like to be a farmer who had to spread his seed by hand. Every time I felt the seeds leaving my hand as I strew them across bare patches of ground I felt a sense of satisfaction, peace, and accomplishment. Unfortunately, the local mosquitos obviously felt that it was their duty to interrupt my peace of mind since they called all of their friends and descended upon me in hordes; or at least that’s the way that it felt when I started to get bitten by them.
My back and sides itched and it actually seemed like I could feel them crawling across my skin as they sniffed out the best place to begin sucking me dry. The more bites I received the less focused I was on how I was spreading the seeds and I really wanted to just quit and get away from them. But I didn’t; I kept at my self-assigned task until I was finished and then went back inside and got ready for bed.
This morning during my prayer time I realized that like the weeds in the parable of the sower the mosquitos could be seen as an example of how the enemy works. While I was sowing the seed I was happy and content in the work I was doing, but as soon as the mosquitos started biting I wanted to quit and go right back into the house so that I could get away from them. As I prayed the Lord helped me to realize that there will be times when we are doing His will and we are going to be attacked by viscious bites (words or actions of people provoked by the enemy.) Just like the grass seed that I kept sowing–despite the bites of the mosquitos–we have to remember that when we are sowing God’s seed and we are attacked by others we have to keep on working.
As a follow on note it is interesting that the mosquito bites didn’t itch nearly as badly as they have in the past. I’ve allways had a really bad reaction to being bitten and this time they hardly itched at all. They were easy to ignore. I think that in that example God has shown me another truth; the truth that when we are attacked by the enemy’s provocations those bites and stings won’t be as bad if we keep doing His work.

I wrote out most of the above post in my prayer journal this morning and at the time really hadn’t intended on posting it, but something else happened after I got to work that made me see my thoughts from my morning quiet time in a different light. When I woke up this morning I really wasn’t feeling very good. Remember those wonderful tasting Asian Tacos? Unfortunately, lettuce sometimes causes me gastric distress. Well… let’s just say that this morning my stomach hurt and I was having really, really bad abdominal cramps. So bad in fact that I almost called in sick and stayed home. Thankfully I didn’t listen to that little voice that kept saying, “Just call in! You deserve a day off!” The reason that I say thankfully is because if I had I would have missed out of the greatest blessing of my whole week if I’d stayed home.

One of the ladies that I work with came by to talk to me and she was feeling very frustrated and upset about some issues that were going on in her life. It was obvious that she really needed someone to listen to her. I listened for a while and asked her some questions about the situation with the intention of offering some advice when suddenly I felt prompted to share parts of my testimony with her. This was a very dramatic change in the topic that we had been discussing as I shared information with her about God’s grace and specifically some of the times that He’s been there for me during troubled times. Eventually I asked her whether she’d ever invited Jesus to be her Savior.

God blessed me today by allowing me to be in the right place at the right time; to help someone who was hurting by leading them to the only one who can bless them with true peace and joy.

So where does the parable of the Sower come in to play here you may ask? Well, it all came together for me when I later asked her if she had a Bible. I found out that she had already been given a Bible by one of the Veteran’s Administration Chaplain’s here at the facility where I work. I got to see that I wasn’t the one who sowed that first seed that grew in her heart, but I got to be there for the harvest! God is so good!