When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. Matthew 13:19 (NLT)
A Never Ending Story – The Seed Series – Part 4
Go to PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6 | PART 7
Our hearts are filled with well-worn walkways. Winding and twisted path climbing mountains and descending into valleys deep inside our psyche. Some are fresh, having only been traveled down a few times. Others are solid and stoic set in place by years of repetition. Reaction, truth, and story – belief and faith, too – build these paths with their intuitive responses, learned behavior, and familiar processes when faced with certain situations.
How have your circumstances taught you to behave?
Were you bullied?
Did you face a health crisis?
Did someone you love leave? Or love you back?
Were you praised for your performances, or ridiculed for your failures?
Success, failure, abuse, joy, fun, happiness, heartbreak, illness… these stories and experiences form paths in our hearts which become the responses and reactions we give physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Neuroscience calls them neural pathways: behavior reinforced by repetition that we revert to almost subconsciously: a pathway of response we travel down in any given situation.
Perhaps God is trying to “sow seeds” of healing and wholeness, change and newness, generosity and hope, into your life. Maybe The Divine is whispering more secrets (mysteries) to you? Could it be that God is trying to coax you out of old practices and ways? But because you're treading the same old paths, reacting and responding in the same old ways, the newness of God can’t sink deep.
What paths do you tread out in your heart? Do you feel like you’re going around in circles? On a treadmill?
Neuroscience also tells us that it is possible to change the pathways of behavior and reaction in our brains. We can reset ‘The Way'… we can carve a new path. It takes time. It takes courage and tenacity. It takes time. But it is possible. It is more than possible. It’s a choice we make.
In Jesus' parable, the farmer still chose to scatter seeds on the path. Perhaps he was hopeful that one day that old stoic well-worn path might give way so that the soil could at long last accept his gift.
The point isn’t the path that is incapable of accepting the gift of seed. The point is that the seed is sown in faith no matter the condition of the ground. The ground can always change.
JRR Tolkien once said:
“True education is a kind of never ending story — a matter of continual beginnings, of habitual fresh starts, of persistent newness.”
The farmer sowing seed is a kind of never-ending story. Because old paths always succumb to persistent newness.
Go to The Obstacle in the Path – The Seed Series – Part 5
Written by Liz Milani
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