Breaking-up the fallow ground

July 4, 2011 in News

In my youth the Redlands area was still largely considered a rural area. I remember large areas of Ormiston, Cleveland, Wellington Point and Redland Bay having various types of farms. The annual Redland Show and Strawberry Festival also used to prominently feature farm produce. These days the farms have largely been replaced by housing estates, and we’ve largely lost the rural feeling that has been replaced by suburbia. We are blessed to have one of the few remaining farms in the area right next to our church, and we all look forward to the strawberries that are grown there each year. There are many agricultural analogies used in the Bible, most likely because farming and herding were common place in those times.

Anyone with knowledge of farming can tell you that before you can grow any kind of food in a farm or garden you must first plough up the ground where the farm or garden will be. It is only after the ground has been ploughed that you can begin the process of sowing and reaping. In Jeremiah 4:3 the prophet gave a word from the Lord with a command to ‘break up their fallow ground’ and ‘not sow among the thorns’.

Fallow ground is a ground that is left unsown (not seeded) for a season, or otherwise un-ploughed land. The word from the Lord through Jeremiah is in the context of the condition of the people’s hearts towards God, and that God was calling them to repentance from the heart. We understand the context to mean that God’s call to the people was to turn away from being hard-hearted towards Him.

Jeremiah warned that the people should not sow the seeds of repentance in unfit soil, but like a farmer prepare the ground by clearing it of weeds, and exposing it to the sun and air before planting the seed. The call was for the people to prepare their hearts before the Lord in a way that the seed of His word could be nurtured and fruitful. Like fertile soil, hearts would then be nutritious and receptive. To sow in ground that has not been properly ploughed is a waste of both seed and effort—like sowing among thorns or weeds.

Today the same call holds true. One of the things that hinder our walk with the Lord is hardness of heart. All over the world God’s people have been hurt or discouraged in churches, and have walked away. Even though in many cases they still believe in God, perhaps even love Him, their hearts eventually become hard. The softening of the heart is one of the most wonderful works of the Holy Spirit in our lives. One of the most important things to note is that the Holy Spirit most often works in our life with our permission. We should permit and allow the Spirit to work  within us, which is why repentance is so important. The Greek New Testament word for repentance means to ‘think differently’ and is not the same as our normal English dictionary meaning which is to feel remorse, or self-reproach for what a person has done or failed to do.

The way we think shapes the way we live our lives. God’s call to us today is not that different from the call to God’s people in Jeremiah’s time. If our hearts are hard, God wants us to change our thinking. In order for our new thinking to take hold we must prepare or ‘soften’ our hearts so that our new way of thinking will take hold and be fruitful. Let’s keep our hearts soft towards God and each other as the Holy Spirit continues to work in us!