Plow Before The Rain Comes

• Printable Version - Share on Facebook - Posted by Dion Todd July 9, 2015 - Filed in Devotional - 13,315 views
  Sow to yourselves in righteousness, Reap according to kindness. Break up your fallow ground; For it is time to seek Yahweh, Until He comes and rains righteousness on you. Hosea 10:12 WEB
  
  I grew up on a farm and over the long cold winter, the ground of the fields would become so hard that water would just run off of it like rock. The rain would no longer penetrate it. When spring came, we would have to plow it with a tractor, break it all up to get it ready to plant. We could then plant the seed, the rain would come, and later we would get a harvest. Each year we had to do this to see a harvest. With no work, there was no reward.
  
  Left alone, our hearts will become as hard as rock. Life happens and you add a little hurt here, another disappointment there, someone lies to you again, and soon a bigger wall goes up to protect us. If the rain does come, it will run off still leaving us dry and bare because our hearts have grown hard and calloused from use, and abuse.
  
  There was a time in my life when I could count everyone that I loved on one hand and still have a couple of fingers left. No one hurt me anymore because they were already an enemy when I met them. I thank God that He did not leave me like that. He slowly opened me up and eventually I could show love, and be loved, something that I had never known.
  
  In ancient Palestine, farming was a bit different than today. They scattered the seed first, then plowed it into the ground. Think of the parable that Jesus told of the sower in Matthew 13:3. You hear the word of God, then we plow it into our ground by doing it. He will then take care of everything else and provide the rain, the nutrients and the sunshine. Working together, we bring forth a harvest.
  
  God can heal a hardened heart, if you allow Him, but we can hold Him at a distance as well if we choose to. We have to work with Him to advance. He gives us a word, we break up the ground by doing what He told us, then He provides the rain. We study, He reveals something new, we try and live it, then there is a reward. The rain that comes from being in the Lords presence and His word will soften our hearts, make it grow, and begin to heal.
  
  It is not very pleasant when our ground is being broken up. Seek the Lord and His presence each day and do not let your heart become cold and hard. Talk to Him each day and cultivate a relationship. There can be no harvest until the ground is made ready, and there are fields that have sat unchanged for decades.
  
  Prayer: Lord guide me, reveal to me the things that I need to change and give me the grace to do it. Show me the next step. Help me break up the pieces of my life that have hardened, and send Your rain, in the name of Jesus.
  
  Note: Many of the readers have been asking for some more information about fasting. Because of that, we have a new teaching up called "Fasting: A Lost Art". If you go to the website menu and click on "Teachings", you should see it at the top. It is quite in depth, with Biblical foundation, testimonies, a journal of our last long fast, and a pic of Dion with a prize-winning bass! You will have to read it to find out why ;-). Have a blessed day!