Running With Mark 28
Day Twenty-Eight – January 25, 2020
Read: Matthew 13:13-23 New Revised Standard Version
I have an app on my phone called, “Picture This” that instantly identifies plants. You take a picture of the plant, and the app pulls the name of the plant and gives you details. This app was very helpful when I moved into our new house, because I couldn’t always tell if something in the garden was a plant or a weed.
In today’s passage Jesus is like the plant finder app. He helps the people make sense of the parable of the Sower.
For today, please read and ponder these poems.
Good Ground by Malcolm Guite
I love your simple story of the sower,
With all its close attention to the soil,
Its movement from the knowledge to the knower,
Its take on the tenacity of toil.
I feel the fall of seed a sower scatters,
So equally available to all,
Your story takes me straight to all that matters,
Yet understands the reasons why I fall.
Oh deepen me where I am thin and shallow,
Uproot in me the thistle and the thorn,
Keep far from me that swiftly snatching shadow,
That seizes on your seed to mock and scorn.
O break me open, Jesus, set me free,
Then find and keep your own good ground in me.
What I Have Learned So Far by Mary Oliver
Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don’t think so.
.
All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with a sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of — indolence, or action.
.
Be ignited, or be gone.
Music:
The Lorax – Let It Grow by Dr. Suess
Prayer Focus:
What would help you to thrive in your life, your work, your relationships and your faith?
Pray to be good soil.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Karen Bruins
