The Hard Soil

The hard soil is the last soil that will hinder us from bearing fruit in this next season of our lives.

The hard soil is where the seed fell on the pathway and the birds stole the seed away.

The path spoken of in this parable is a soil that has been beaten and trodden on and walked over to the point where the soil is as hard as rock.

Some of you feel like that – you’ve been trampled on once too often - nothing gets in anymore. As soon as there is an inkling of hope or destiny or future – it gets stolen away.

The devil is busy with his job of snatching or seizing like a bandit or rogue the word of the kingdom before it has time even to sprout.

Nothing moves you anymore. Nothing excites you anymore.

Perhaps you’ve experienced a significant failure in your life.. It’s been said that “The hardest part about failure is the mental struggle that goes on after we fail.. When we encounter a major failure, we feel so frustrated that we oftentimes see no meaning in continuing the work started or in pursuing life itself.”

Perhaps you’ve endured a tragedy and we still can’t get past the “Why God.. Why?”

Divorce, depression, repeated disappointments, abuse, .. all serving as another footprint that presses the very air out of your lungs and hardens your heart that little bit more because that’s the only coping mechanism you know.

You don’t want to risk being hurt, let down, disappointed again – and maybe you didn’t even realise you were doing it?

Job is a perfect example of someone who has had the very air within him trampled by tragedies of life. He says in Job 17:11 "My days are past, my purposes and plans are frustrated; even the thoughts (desires and possessions) of my heart [are broken off]."

There is a paralysis from being crushed once too often. A fear of opening up again. A fear of being crushed again.

You know the trampled ground was never excluded from being sown with seeds because the master gardener would later plow the ground under the seed – he would re-soften the ground so that fruit could grow there once again - No matter how hard the ground.

Psalms says God heals the heartbroken and bandages their wounds and he puts the fallen on their feet again

And God is calling you to trust again..

. God is calling you to open up your heart up again..

Nothing will happen to you that won’t first pass through the gracious loving permissive hands of Jesus Christ.(Chuck Swindoll) The bible says that he will never give you more than you can handle.

2Th 2:16 “May Jesus himself and God our Father, who reached out in love and surprised you with gifts of unending help and confidence, (17) put a fresh heart in you, invigorate your work, enliven your speech.”

Learn to trust God again. Open up your heart to Him again. Let God do his transforming work in and through you in this next season.