Read, Pray, Blog pt 2.

Thistles and Thorns:
As I read through my bible reading for the day, I prayed and asked God to reveal something new and fresh in this scripture. Matthew 13 is what i read through today. To many, this is a common and very ordinary scripture that we hear a lot. But as I began to read, God was talking to me about who I am in this picture. For those of you that don't know it, Matthew 13 starts out with Jesus getting into a boat and talking in stories. The first story he talks about is a farmer who is sowing seeds. He said the kingdom of heaven is like the man who sows seeds and some fell on the road and was promptly eaten by birds. Some fell in rocky soil, and quickly grew, but because the soil of their character was too rocky, the seed was scorched by the sun and died. Then he said there was a bunch that fell among thistles and thorns. They too grew, but the thistles and thorns chocked them out. Finally, there was some seed that fell on what the bible describes as "Good soil."

The meaning of the story is explained by Jesus later:
Matthew 13:18-23 (the Message paraphrase)

18-19"Study this story of the farmer planting seed. When anyone hears news of the kingdom and doesn't take it in, it just remains on the surface, and so the Evil One comes along and plucks it right out of that person's heart. This is the seed the farmer scatters on the road.

20-21"The seed cast in the gravel—this is the person who hears and instantly responds with enthusiasm. But there is no soil of character, and so when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it.

22"The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it.

23"The seed cast on good earth is the person who hears and takes in the News, and then produces a harvest beyond his wildest dreams."

24-26He told another story. "God's kingdom is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. That night, while his hired men were asleep, his enemy sowed thistles all through the wheat and slipped away before dawn. When the first green shoots appeared and the grain began to form, the thistles showed up, too.

This story was very common to me too, but then I saw something that I have read before but leaped off the page at me.

Verse 24 says that the Kingdom of God is like a farmer who plants seed and then an enemy comes along and plants thistles.

Then this interesting dialog comes about:

27"The farmhands came to the farmer and said, 'Master, that was clean seed you planted, wasn't it? Where did these thistles come from?'

28"He answered, 'Some enemy did this.'

"The farmhands asked, 'Should we weed out the thistles?'

29-30"He said, 'No, if you weed the thistles, you'll pull up the wheat, too. Let them grow together until harvest time. Then I'll instruct the harvesters to pull up the thistles and tie them in bundles for the fire, then gather the wheat and put it in the barn.'"

How does this apply? What is really going on here? God showed me clearly in this portion of scripture that often, we worry about pulling up the thistles in our lives when we should be worried about keeping our lives healthy. In this story God is like the master Farmer who planted the seeds to begin with. He trusted that the wheat would grow in-spite of the adversity. He didn't believe that they would be chocked by the thistles.
Our lives are constantly sowed into by God, our friends, family, spouses, children, and spiritual mentors. However, there are also thistles in our lives. Thistles represent problems and sin to me. There are some thistles of sin that we will deal with until Christ's return. Instead of FOCUSING on trying to live a sinless life, we should FOCUS on GOD! When we focus too much on the thistles and thorns that surround our lives,we can very easily be overwhelmed and overcome by fear, lack of decision, and the desire to BEAT sin, which we cannot do anyway.

In my life, I know that I have too often focused on the thistles and not focused on the harvest that God wants to bring about in my life. If I focus on that, GOD will sort out the rest and burn what needs to be burned.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.

- Romans 12:1