Hard hearts and fallow ground

"Sow with a view to righteousness, 

Reap in accordance with kindness; 

Break up your fallow ground, 

For it is time to seek the Lord 

Until He comes to rain righteousness on you."

Hosea 10:12

Great photo, isn't it?  Very appealing, eye catching.

No, not really.  It's just hard, dry, unused ground....

producing nothing, 

making nothing,

helping no one.  

In the early hours of this morning, as I wandered between sleep and wake, I thought about this verse...."break up the fallow ground."  

In the night hours, out of nowhere came this verse I hadn't thought about in a while.  I'm sure God was speaking to me about me and so I take some time this morning and meditate on that verse.

Fallow is not a word we use these days, but it's familiar to any farmer.  It's land that isn't doing what land was designed to do...it's just sitting there.  It might have potential, but until the farmer does something with it.....it's simply fallow. 

And, if it sits too long it becomes hard and unproductive, not producing anything, not doing what land was meant to do.

My heart is like that too.  When I'm not breaking up the fallow parts of my heart with the word of God, with prayer, with time with God, it becomes hard, sterile and cold.  

"Break up the fallow ground" demands I am aware of my dry places and I do something about it!  If I don't....If I let those fallow parts of my life alone they become hard.  Hard to God, hard to his word and hard to others.  

And, to be honest, when my heart hardens prayer is the last thing I want to do!

It would be easier if God said, "Let me break up the fallow ground of your life" but he didn't.  He told me to do it.  So if I care at all about growth, being of value to God, making a difference in the world and eternity it means I have to get dirty!  

I have to get out the plow (God's word), find those hard, dry places in my life and break up that soil with God's word and time with God in prayer.  

I have to break up that dry ground, seed the word in those places and dig out the weeds that might have grown while I ignored that part of my life.  

It takes time with God, time in prayer, time in his word, time to listen to him.

Hard hearts and fallow ground.  Not exciting stuff....but watch a farmer as he takes a plow to that ground, turns it over, breaks it up and plants his seed.  Then come back a month later, two months later and see what happened.  Even hard hearts and fallow ground can be places of great blessing if we refuse to let our heart stay hard, dry and fallow.

And what a difference a little work makes in fallow ground!