What Can the Soil Do?

Today's post is a pretty long excerpt from my "Parables of the Kingdom" book. It is well worth the read, otherwise I would never have decided to type it all out to share with you all. Hope you are blessed.

from pages 14-16

What Can the Soil Do?

"This is the story of a plot of ground that wanted to be a garden. The story actually begins with the Farmer, who purchased the plot of ground at great expense. Then he provided some seed of excellent quality and came to the plot of ground and sowed the seed.
Well, the plot of ground rejoiced. It had always wanted to be a garden. And it began immediately to try to do its part toward becoming a garden of beauty and fruitfulness. It began to look at itself and discovered to its dismay that it was covered with a number of unsightly weeds. There were thorns and thistles and briers and brambles, and the plot of ground was concerned and ashamed. Before the coming of the Farmer it hadn't paid much attention to such things, and the weeds had made terrible inroads. Their roots were deeply entrenched in the soil.
"How can I receive any benefit from the seed while all these weeds are growing unchecked?" wondered the plot of ground. "Everybody knew that a garden must be weeded in order for the seed to grow."
So I began immediate efforts to try to remove the weeds. It wanted to cooperate with the Farmer so that the time would come as quickly as possible when it would no longer be just an ugly weed patch, but would become a lovely garden.
The plot of ground struggled and fretted. It sincerely wanted to get rid of its weeds, but the problem was figuring out how. All the instruction about weed-pulling seemed to be vague and contradictory. The plot o ground heard from one source that if it would get rid of the leaves and stems, the Farmer would then be willing to pull out the roots. But it discovered it was too weak to get rid of the leaves and stems.
It was told that if that if a plot of ground did its part, then the Farmer would do His part. but the plot of ground seemed unable to do any part of the weed-pulling for itself. It was often told to try hard to overcome the weeds, but it didn't exactly know to do that either, and when the weeds were still apparent, week after week, those around the plot of ground, and even the plot of ground began to wonder if it were really sincere in wanting to get rid of the weeds.
Someone suggested to the plot of ground that if it would not try to remove the weeds from the whole garden all at once, but would concentrate on removing just one weed at a time, that would be easier. But the plot of ground found itself unable to remove even one weed.
At times the plot of ground almost gave up in discouragement at the lack of progress made, but then it would once again picture the garden it longed to become, and it would again put forth earnest efforts to try to get rid of the weeds. But all of the efforts of the plot of ground to rid itself of the thorns and briers ended in nothing.
One day the plot of ground was forced to admit that it would never become a beautiful garden on its own, and that day the Farmer came to the plot of ground with some terrific news. The Farmer had come often before, but he plot of ground had been so busy struggling with the weeds that it hadn't really taken time to listen. The Farmer told the plot of ground something that was almost impossible to believe. It seemed at first glance to go contrary to everything the plot of ground had ever heard about gardening. Here is what the Farmer said: "It is not the responsibility of the garden to get rid of the weeds. That is the work of the Gardener."

It is the Gardener Who Pulls the Weeds

"Well you can see right away why the plot of ground had a hard time with the response. No wonder the plot of ground had trouble with the Farmer's announcement.
But unless the plot of ground accepted the Farmers offer, it must give up all hope of becoming a beautiful garden so the plot of ground surrendered to the Farmer and allowed Him to pull the weeds. And the first thing you kow, the weeds were being pulled up- by the roots, not just the leaves and stems went. The whole plant was uprooted and taken far away from the plot of ground. Then in their place good seeds were sown, and the garden began to grown and develop.
As time passed, the plot of ground, which was now a beautiful garden, continued  to allow the Farmer to do His work. And the garden continued to do its work. It continued to accept the seed that the Farmer sowed, drank deeply of the water the Farmer showered, and basked in the sunshine that the Farmer provided. The plants in the garden grew and grew and brought forth fruit- some an hundredfold, some sixty and some thirty."