Ben and I have been wanting to start a blog for awhile. After days, weeks, ok...months of discussing potential blog names, we finally came up with ours. "Refining Soil". After we FINALLY decided to have a blog pertaining to the ever so popular Parable of the Sower, we had to narrow it down to a simple, concise, and easy-to-remember blog name. So why Refining Soil?
Let's start at the beginning. When I (Tara speaking here) spent a few months in Pocoata, Bolivia as a missionary...I learned some tough lessons. I assumed I was going to Bolivia that summer to "plant seeds"...To tell my Quechuan friends about the God who had radically saved my soul and transformed my life and that they, too, could recieve this indescribable gift. Ha...if I only knew. I didn't plant seeds that summer. I moved rocks! I was pulling weeds. Let me explain...
Many of you know the parable of the sower. Jesus was hanging out next to the lake and crowds started to gather. So Jesus told this story of about a farmer who went out to sow some seed. It fell on different types of soil. First the seeds scattered on the path and some birds ate them all up. Then the seed fell among some rocky soil. Some plants sprung up...but the soil was too shallow and the plants had no root so they died. Then some seeds fell on some soil full of thorns. Well of course the thorns grew and choked the plants. Finally...the seeds fell on some fertile, ready soil. And it flourished.
"Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown." (Matthew 13:18-23)
Sometimes I feel like Christians assume everybody's soil is fertile and ready to recieve some seed and grow. I learned, the hard way, that this is NOT the case. When I was in Bolivia, I moved rocks. I pulled weeds. I really hope you are getting this. Because this is huge. The Quechua people I met in the small village of Pocoata were not ready to recieve the seed. God had me there to help REFINE THEIR SOIL. When I looked up synonyms for refine, what did I find?
Refine: clarify, cleanse, filter, process, rarify, strain.
My relationship with Christ has been a process. It is continually being cleansed, clarified, filtered, strained. This isn't something that magically happens overnight. Farmers spend SO much time preparing their soil and making sure that it is READY to recieve the seed. If it's not ready, then the seed is useless. Even after we initially enter into a relationship with Christ, we are being refined.
So, in all of those words, what I am just trying to say is that we (Ben and I) have a passion for refining soil. We have a passion for God's word to be understood personally and not just words heard out of some book that is read to us each Sunday. We want to move the heavy rocks of shame, guilt, and fear which prevents many from having root. We want to pull those annoying weeds of depression, addiction, anger, pride, greed, WHATEVER it is that chokes us and makes us unfruitful. And of course, we would love nothing better than to be the ones God chooses to sow the seed in some good, fertile soil. But if all God wants us to do is move rocks and pull weeds so that someone else can sow a seed long after we're gone...then that's ok too.
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