June 15

Golden Grain

The sower soweth the word. — Mark 4:14

The human heart is only the soil. Its natural products are thorns and briers. These grow without sowing and without cultivation. We do not need to be taught in order to be wicked. But if good things are to grow in our hearts, they must be sown and cultivated. The seeds must be brought from heaven. This is just what has been done. The words of the Bible are divine seeds. They have a wondrous power in themselves. Like natural seeds, they grow when planted, and produce plants of righteousness. Bare like the desert, or rather grown all over with rank weeds and briers, like neglected gardens, until the Sower comes are our hearts by nature; yet if we receive the good seed with faith and love, our lives are changed, and are made to blossom like the rose.

There is another thought: all of us may be sowers of this good seed. We must take heed that we really sow the “word.” There is no other seed that will yield the harvest of spiritual life. The words of God have life in them. “The words that I speak unto you,” said the Master, “they are spirit, and they are life.” If we get these heavenly seeds into people’s hearts, we shall not look in vain for fruits. It is a holy privilege to be permitted to help the great Husbandman in the sowing of this precious seed. We can carry the golden grains with us, and drop them wherever we go. This we can do by being full of the word, thus having something to give for every experience. We can sow the seed by the judicious giving of tracts and leaflets. We can do it by writing letters to carry to others some truth suited to their need. Then we can live so sweetly that our daily influence will be a scattering of heavenly seed all about us. Then some day we shall stand before the great Husbandman, our bosom full of golden sheaves.