Break Up Your Fallow Ground

While driving to a worship gathering recently to minister the word of God I passed by a field that had recently been plowed. The turned over dirt looked rich and fertile. I am not sure what the owner has in mind for that field, but I do know the fallow ground had been broken up.

As I drove past that field I thought about our hearts. How hard they can become. How unproductive. How littered with weeds. Just like the field needs to be plowed we need God to take the plow of His word and His Spirit to break up our fallow ground. To break up our hard hearts.

How easily we can lose our focus and become hardened. It happens through busyness, disappointments, temptations and apathy. We may not even be aware it is happening. Daily and hourly our hearts become hardened, petrified, callused, rigid and fallow.

When this happens the word of God is not received readily. The promptings of the Holy Spirit are ignored. Apathy sets in and such people may not even be aware they need to repent.

Breaking up the fallow ground is not a pleasant experience. For the hard working farmer he knows to break up the fallow ground means lots of dust, lots of time and the digging down deep of the plow to turn over the dirt. Neither is this a pleasant experience for a follower of Jesus.

Conviction is like the blade of a plow sinking into a hard heart. The pressure breaks through the hard outer surface to get down deep. The cutting of the blades turns over things in hearts that lie beneath the surface. Sins. Attitudes. Wrong priorities. Steps gone astray.

Afterwards, when the word of God is sowed into such hearts it falls on fertile ground. It germinates and takes root. It grows and matures. Soon fruit is ripened.

What is the condition of your heart today? Is your heart fallow ground? Is your heart turned over and fertile ground?

Jeremiah 4:3 (ESV)
3  For thus says the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: “Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.