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“As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

Matthew 13:23, ESV

Jesus’ parable of the seeds is one of our hearts. Hearts are either opened by the Holy Spirit or hardened. We cannot choose where we lie in this journey. Like the places where the seed lands, the power is not within those of us who are proclaiming the Gospel, nor is it in the power of those hearing it to control the conditions of the soil of the heart to receive. The work is God’s. We can pray for God to prepare our hearts, we can pray that God prepare the hearts of others, but it is God who causes the seed of faith to grow. Our only choice is, for those of us who are confident in our faith, to proclaim it and, for those who are there to hear it, to sit and listen. Sometimes we will know very quickly where someone's heart is because they will leave very quickly, but others take a little more time to witness. Our prayer is that we find those with good soil and see the fruit. This doesn’t speak to salvation, but the fruitfulness of the Spirit and the power of our Lord’s grace as we are called to bring to the world our Lord’s peace.

Let us pray. I thank you, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, your dear Son, that you have kept me this night from all harm and danger, and I ask you to protect me this day also from sin and every evil, that in all I do today, I may please you. For into your hands, I commend myself, my body and soul, and all that is mine. Let your holy angel watch over me, that the wicked foe have no power over me. Amen.