Rocky Soil aka Shallow Soil

When looking at your next chapter in God, my last blog discussed the purposes God has for each season of our lives, and how our response to what he wants to do can produce fruit, or undermine that purpose. Our responses are much like the parable of the soil.

The first soil I'll look at is the shallow Rocky Soil.

I remember hearing a message many many years ago about youth and how many of the things they do are because of the culture they hang out with, rather than the conviction they have personally.

What they do is largely because of what their generation is doing or their friends are doing, rather than any real heartfelt belief or conviction about what it is their doing.

This, for me, was a great example of the shallow soil.

Shallow soil is where on the surface, the soil looks normal, it looks like good soil, but just beneath the surface there are rocks so that the seed couldn’t put down its roots. The seedling shoots up quickly, and then dies off from sun exposure and lack of access to moisture.

People who are shallow soil "believe for a while, and in time of trial and temptation fall away (withdraw and stand aloof)." Luke 8:13

Shallow soil is when we do all the right things, we turn up at all the right meetings, and yet somehow what God wants to do in our lives never really grabs a hold of us, it’s never really firmly established in our lives. We go through the motions, and that’s all, without ever really letting God take hold.

The danger of staying shallow is that at the first sign of opposition, the first kind of attack – we’re out. The first time that things get tough – we’re gone.

We bail before God’s work in us, and for us and through us is complete.

We never breakthrough.

However, at some point in your life, God will allow trials to come across your path. 1 Peter 4:12 says "Dear friends, don't be surprised by the fiery troubles that are coming in order to test you. Don't feel as though something strange is happening to you, "

In Judges, God shows that these trials are there to teach us how to fight! God lets us go through trials and tests so that we can become STRONG and RESILIENT so that he can add increase in our life.

God wants to create in us a spiritual tenacity. He wants us to give us some spiritual muscle. He wants to transform us. We can’t get that without trials to test us.

How do we respond?

1. Hold nothing back. Don't give God the shallow surface areas of your life. He wants you to give him all of you!

2. Be like Paul when he says, "I have not yet received all of those things. I have not yet been made perfect. But I move on to take hold of what Christ Jesus took hold of me for. (13) Brothers and sisters, I don't consider that I have taken hold of it yet. But here is the one thing I do. I forget what is behind me. I push hard toward what is ahead of me." (Php 3:12-13)

Dropping out early means we won't bear fruit, and this next chapter of our lives never achieves it's purpose for our lives.