Scriptural Reference:
3 "Listen! Once there was a man who went out to sow corn(?). 4 As he scattered the seed in the field, some of it fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some of it fell on rocky ground, where there is little soil. The seeds soon sprouted,because the soil wasn't deep. 6 Then when the sun came up, it burnt the young plants; and because the roots had not grown deep enough, the plants soon dried up. 7 Some of the seed among thorn bushes, which grew up and choked the plants and they didn't produce any corn(?). 8 But some seeds fell in good soil, and the plants sprouted, grew, and produced corn(?): some had thirty grains, others sixty, and others a hundred." 9 And Jesus concluded "Listen, then if you have ears!".
Mark 4:3-9

Reflection:
In the Parable of the Sower we may learn a valuable lesson as Christians. Essentially there are four personality types described based on the life's they each live. So we can consider the sort of soil or inner garden that our new faith has been planted. Than we may think about the sort of environment and condition the inner garden has developed. As well as what sort of fertiliser we feed our newly founded faith.

These may be viewed as;

The Path:
That path we walk where faith is open for attack. When we see the truth and recognise our need for a real relationship with God through his Son Jesus Christ we begin to set ourselves apart from the world. The world will not change and suddenly became a bed of roses. In fact many new believers soon lose heart and their faith dies off when they realise that life is not easy but a constant challenge. It is in the 'path' times of life there is little soil or nutrients to keep faith alive long enough to thrive that we can see some never go past the initial seed stages of their faith.

The Rocky Ground:
Where faith begins but due to a shallow mind and heart there is nothing to nurture it. For some they may have the intention and the shallow soil to begin their growth in the faith. Yet amongst the soil is 'rocky ground' a sort of metaphor for a mixture of good intentions and hard feelings. Some who take hold of the faith can fail to thrive when their hard emotional baggage is too much to let go of. They show the promise of growth only to let their rocky feelings kill off any chance for true faith to blossom.

The Thorns:
When we linger among those who cling to cardinal ways we can become poisoned and choked of our faith. Thorns in this case may be seen as another metaphor. The thorns represent people and attitudes that existed prior to the coming of faith. How often we ourselves can look back on those friends who scoffed at us when we shared that we had accepted Jesus as our Saviour and planned on changing our ways. The sarcastic jokes and back stapping tricks to pull us back into the worldly ways begin to choke us. So often those who have just accepted the Gospel message are pulled back into sin and separation from God. Those are the thorny friends who will try and kill young faith.

The Good Soil:
With a strong heart and a resolute mind we can nurture the Word of God in us and grow steadily each day. When someone has their eyes opened and they see the truth of the Gospel they have every chance to grow and develop a deeper and personal relationship with God trough his Son Jesus Christ. Yet it takes time and effort for the young Christian to be able to grow. Much as it is with a garden there needs to be time spent removing the rocks or emotional baggage that only drags us down. Then there is the tricky bit of weeding the garden of those thorns or negative people who have not seen the truth and will try and choke our faith and hope. With daily study of the Bible we can do these things as we prepare and nurture the soil of our soul to be able to grow our faith and our relationship with Jesus. It is true that the path of life will always have both good and bad days and there will be times we feel at our lowest emotionally. It is thankfully in these times that with a healthy growing faith we can find our strength to continue.

Prayer:

Nurture in me Lord Jesus faith in you,
Under your care I will find rest and joy,
Remove from me that which distracts,
Teaching me your Gospel Truths,
Use me as an instrument of your love,
Remember me in my times of trial,
Each time the world tries to deceive me.

I pray these things in your blessed name.

Amen