Smooth soil: “Some seeds fell on a footpath, and the birds came and ate them.”
(Matthew
13:4) Because they could not sink into the soil, the seeds are exposed to
the birds. They simply lay there on the hard surface vulnerable to extinction.
It’s one of life’s truisms: anything that does
not sink into your heart makes no long-term impact. Change happens most effectively
when the information reaches into the core of the person. As John P. Kotter, in
his book The Heart of Change, puts it, “Motivation is
not a thinking word, it’s a feeling word.” So if you want to be empowered
to experience new directions, to set new trends for your life, to accomplish
significant things, you have to get your heart involved.
What keeps that from happening? What are the
obstacles that keep the “seed” lying on the surface of your life where it is
easily snatched away? This story describes the soil as a “footpath.” In other
words, there’s lots of traffic that has pounded the soil down to a hard, smooth
surface. The reality of life’s busyness is that it hardens us and makes us
careless about inner things. “Like the hard-beaten path, trodden down by the
feet of men and beasts, is the heart that becomes a highway for the world’s
traffic.” (White 1941, p. 44.) A cartoon pictures a man in a doctor’s office.
His shirt is off. He is standing beside the examining table. The doctor’s just
finished the examination and is delivering the diagnosis. With hand on the
patient’s shoulder, the doctor says, “I diagnose your problem as a biterminal
combustion of the para" nic illuminator. In other words, Charlie, you’re
burning your candle at both ends.”
Does that “illness” sound familiar? Chuck
Swindoll, in his book Simple Faith, describes this reality: “Every day … 108,000 of us move to a
different home, and 18,000 move to another state, the United States government
issues 50 more pages of regulations, 167 businesses go bankrupt while 689 new
ones start up, 105 Americans become millionaires, Americans purchase 45,000 new
automobiles and trucks, and smash up 87,000, 20,000 people write letters to the
president, more than 6,300 get divorced, while 13,000 get married, dogs bite
11,000 citizens, including 20 mail carriers, four people call Graceland to speak
with Elvis, we eat 75 acres of pizza, 53 million hot dogs, 167 million eggs,
three million gallons of ice cream, and 3,000 tons of candy, we also jog 17
million miles and burn 1.7 billion calories while we’re at it.”
Now it doesn’t take a PhD from Princeton to
conclude that we’re simply busy, busy, busy. We’re a society of doers, Type-A
personalities who can’t stop or stand still for very long without getting fidgety
or nervous or bored or feeling guilty that we’re just not accomplishing
something. In fact, one of the great phrases we often hear used to motivate people
to action is, “Don’t just stand there. Do something!” We’re obsessed with being
useful, getting the job done, goals and objectives. Our culture revolves around
action, activity, doing. North Americans are probably the most urgent people on
earth, caught in what futurist David Zach describes as “hyper-living—skimming
along the surface of life.” We experience only the surface, no depth, just
busyness.
But the question is, does life have to be this
way, simply skimming along the surface, with no depth, no heart? Our story
tells us that if this is the description of our life, then the potential for
great fruitfulness and fulfillment, represented by the “seeds,” is terribly vulnerable
to being snatched away by forces all around us. We’ll never become people with
depth, balance and inner strength. So when the storms blow, and they always do,
no wonder so many people capsize and don’t make it.
Maybe we need to change the mantra to, “Don’t
just do something. Stand there!” Stop doing and stand still long enough to pay
attention to what’s on the inside, to allow the soil of your life to be
cultivated, to notice your heart, to deal with internal health, not just external
activity. The Bible says, “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm
46:10) Apparently the spiritual part of life can only be experienced in
stillness, quietness, lack of frenetic activity and busyness, a fundamental
change of focus and priority.
It’s said that the surface of the ocean can be
whipped up into a frothing nightmare of chaos by hurricane winds. But drop down
below the surface 10 or 15 feet and there is only calm and quiet. The awful effects
on the surface aren’t felt down deep. The seeds of fruitfulness and fulfillment
can only grow when they’re down deep.
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