SUNDAY POST – “The Good Soil”
The enemy hates children. He’ll try to convince us not to have kids of our own. If that doesn’t work, he’ll do everything he can to disrupt their development prenatally. If that doesn’t work, he’ll burden and distract us to the point that we have no time or energy to tend to them physically, mentally and spiritually. They’re much easier to lead astray that way so that he can prevent the word of God from coming to fruition in their life.
The enemy seems to understand something that many parents have yet to realize. He knows that children are the fruit of our womb, our heritage in the Lord and our reward (Psalm 127:3 Prov 23:22; Luke 1:42). Both after creation and after the flood, God’s directive was the same, “be fruitful and multiply (Gen 1:22, Gen 9:1). The word “fruitful” holds special connotation when considering its application in Matthew 13, Mark 4 and Luke 8.
When considering the different soils in the parable of the sower and the seed, we can see that it is filled with insight for parents. As my family carefully prepares for the yield of the fruit that we want to see our children bear, I wonder, will it be 30 fold, 60 fold, 100 fold, or will they succumb to the elements and their vines whither? I can tell you from personal experience that, for everything we do to prepare the soil within our children, there is an opposing force that seeks to do the opposite. We need to stop and consider what is actually happening.
The seed sown along the path is the person who hears the word and doesn’t understand it so it doesn’t get applied in life. We allow the enemy to steal the word when we choose to cultivate the hearts of our children along a common or worldly path that compacts the soil. In the arena of public education, we can see this in “whole class” learning where individual thought is suppressed and groupthink is rewarded. There is a way that seems right to the world but it ends in death (Prov 14:12). Do not allow the soil of your children‘s heart to be compacted or trampled by this world. As they are being tested, you must diligently till their soil by teaching them how to discern and pursue the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Rom 12:2).
The seed sown among the rocky ground is the person who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy but it cannot take root enough to withstand the tribulation or persecution that results in following the word. In the classroom, conversations under the guidance of SEL produce struggle sessions where individual “bias” is perpetually analyzed under a microscope. Tribulation and persecution are used to persuade a child to question their values and morals as they are eventually gaslighted into believing that those morals and values are oppressing or dehumanizing someone else. Do not allow the rocks of the fear of man to take residence in the hearts of your children. Remove those rocks by teaching them how to count it all Joy when they meet trials of various kinds (James 1:2 ESV).
The seed sown among the thorns is the person who hears the word and likes it only to have it choked by the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches. Through identity theory, students are now taught to recalibrate their cares to focus more on feelings and emotions rather than on truth. Focused on self, they more easily believe a lie. Those emotions are then hijacked for a social activist agenda as they are programmed to change the system for a more “equitable” tomorrow. Bit by bit, they begin to reject their own American heritage for the “greater good” of socialism which is inevitably followed by communism. Do not allow the thorny lies to take up residence in the hearts of your children. “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures (James 1:18 ESV)” Teach them how to think, how to identify fallacies and to always pursue truth above all else.
What does good soil look like? A heart is adequately tilled when it can tune out the world to understand and pursue the will of God. A heart is free from rocks of doubt when it is steadfast and unswervingly faithful. A heart is free from thorns when it values truth more than life itself because it is only truth that sets us free.
If we could capture a visual of the spiritual condition of our children in this moment, what would we see? If we take them to church but then leave them to their own devices the rest of the week while blindly trusting the public education system, we would see fallow ground, once tilled but now filled with rocks and thorns. Proverbs 29:15 tells us that a child left to himself brings shame to his mother. Nobody else is coming to do the work for your child but there are plenty showing up to undo the work you’ve already put in. I have been to many school board meetings that were testament to this as the opposition continuously presents contracts and policies filled with rocks and thorns.
Parents, we have to wake up now. It’s not enough just to plant the seeds. We have to tend the entire garden. We have to get involved in the decisions made in education or it will not go well for our homes, our communities, our schools or our country. It doesn’t matter how much time we used to spend in our garden. If we do not diligently tend to it according to each season, it eventually stops producing.
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” Malachi 4:5-6 ESV