Jesus left the house and went out beside Lake Galilee, where he sat down to teach. Such large crowds gathered around him that he had to sit in a boat, while the people stood on the shore. Then he taught them many things by using stories. He said:

A farmer went out to scatter seed in a field. While the farmer was scattering the seed, some of it fell along the road and was eaten by birds. Other seeds fell on thin, rocky ground and quickly started growing because the soil wasn’t very deep. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched and dried up, because they did not have enough roots. Some other seeds fell where thornbushes grew up and choked the plants. But a few seeds did fall on good ground where the plants produced a hundred or sixty or thirty times as much as was scattered. If you have ears, pay attention! (Matthew 13:1–9)

Good soil is fertile soil. Is there anything that the good soil does to become good soil? The soil does not work hard in order to produce a hundred times the amount of seed that was planted in it The soil does not plant the seed. The soil does not bring the rain.

The soil is simply the target for where the farmer throws the seed. The farmer is the one who does all the work. God is the farmer. We are soil. What we produce for God is because God gave the increase. All we need to do is be there for the farmer to use.

It is so easy to forget the nature of our relationship with God. The reason we belong to God is not because we did something. It’s because he did something. He bought us with the blood of his Son. Therefore, we simply respond to God. There is nothing more we can do. The purpose of the story of the farmer and his field is not to encourage us to work hard. Instead, it is to help us realize, to help us understand, that it is God who is hard at work in us. He is the one who plants and harvests. We are his field to do with as he wills and as he needs. We can be confident, therefore, since we are a fertile field, that we will produce the fruit that he has sown in us.

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