Several years ago, when my family and I moved into our newly built home, there was no garden, not even a single blade of grass, just dirt. Hard, dry, tightly packed dirt.
To dig a hole was a near to impossible task;
it took an acute level of endurance, and much patience but my husband was not
daunted by this stubborn ground. He, an avid gardener, with one of the greenest
thumbs this side of the equator, was determined that we should have our garden.
With relentless perseverance, he set out to
break up that hardened ground. That ground was so immovable in certain areas
that only a good soaking with water for many days could make it yield.
Do you know that the bible compares our
hearts to the ground? Jeremiah 4:3 says, Plow up the hard ground of your hearts! (NLT) and in Hosea 10:12, we see the same admonition.
Jesus Himself also used the ground to symbolize the condition of our heart, in
Luke 8:15 He explains “But that in the good ground, these are they who in an
honest and good heart…” (DARBY – read Luke 8:5-15).
Throughout the bible, in both the Old and
New Testaments, the hardened ground is used to symbolize the stubborn
resistance of our hearts toward God. And just as the hard upper surface of the
ground must be tilled, turned, and broken up to expose soft nutrient-rich soil
ready for good use by the gardener, so too must our hard hearts be tilled,
turned, and broken up to expose a tender “honest
and good heart” ready for good use by God.
You see beloved, our carnal hearts are like
that hard dry ground that will not yield. Hearts that have become hardened
through our own selfish pride, lack of humility and sin – the natural products
of our corrupt hearts.
We must allow God to plow up the hard
ground of our hearts if we are to be recipients of all the goodness of God.
We must allow the Holy Spirit, God’s Living
Water, to flow in us, so that we may become malleable – willing to listen to
Him, willing to change, and willing to obey Him.
The process is painful but necessary and
the results, beautiful, for we will be like a well-watered garden (see Isaiah 58:11).
Amen†
Shelley
Johnson “From the Hardest Places, the most Beautiful Things will Grow” © 2016 revisited August 7, 2025
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