A sower went out to sow some seed…
Think of it. You are the son of the living God. You have come to earth to rescue the human race. It is your job to communicate truths without which your precious ones will be lost…forever. Would you do it like this? Why doesn’t he just come right out and say it – get to the point? What’s with all the stories?
One of the parables that that changed the trajectory of my heart journey is the story of the Sower (Matthew 13:14-15. When Jesus finished telling the story of the Sower, his disciples asked why he told stories. His response was “And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: i ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive; For the hearts of this people have grown dull (calloused – hardened). Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.’
OK Jesus, that sounds so poetic but what does it mean?
I asked God why didn’t he change the way I think when I needed it the most – a teenager. Did Jesus have questions when he was an adolescents? I’m sure he did. Joseph and Mary knew that the questions were that of a child. The answers were for a man. He had to wait. The answer to my question was found in Matthew 13:14-15. Simply because I was not ready to hear it and understand. I was not ready to perceive it – to see it. My heart was dead. So began the journey of healing of my heart so I can hear and see and perceive it.
Despite what many say, becoming a Christian does not make your brokenness completely go away. It’s a myth. In fact, major aspect of maturing involves allowing God to heal the broken parts of our lives and build a greater levels of wholeness in our hearts. We’ve all heard the deep truths of the Christian faith… God loves you, you matter to him. This is a fact, stated as a proposition. I’m sure you’ve heard it any number of times. Why, then, aren’t we the happiest people on earth? Because it hasn’t reached our hearts. Fact are forever lodged safely in the mind. Propositions speak to the mind, but when you tell a story, you speak to the hearts.
We’ve all heard the deep truths of the Christian faith… God loves you, you matter to him. This is a fact, stated as a proposition. I’m sure you’ve heard it any number of times. Why, then, aren’t we the happiest people on earth? Because it hasn’t reached our hearts. Fact are forever lodged safely in the mind. Propositions speak to the mind, but when you tell a story, you speak to the hearts. (Eldridge).
When Jesus comes to town, he speaks in a way that will get past all our intellectual defenses and disarms our hearts. He knows that when you live from a heart that is experiencing God, you move from mental theory and into the heart encounter you were made for. Truth embedded in your heart is activated through experiences that makes us human and alive.