Breaking Up the Fallow Ground

 My memory verse for this week is from Hosea 10:12, “Sow to yourselves righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he comes and rain righteousness upon you.”

The text is similar to Jeremiah 4:3 “For thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.”

I wasn’t sure what fallow ground was, so I looked it up. It’s ground that hasn’t been plowed or planted for a while. Consequently, the dirt becomes hard and often overgrown with weeds and thorns.

So before the farmer plants his seed, he must first break up the hard ground and get rid of the weeds and thorns. That might remind you of the Parable of the Sower which the Lord spoke to His disciples. Here it is from Mark’s gospel:

“Listen to this! Behold, the sower went out to sow; as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil. And after the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.” And He was saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” (Mark 4:3-9)

If it has been a while since you read the parable, I hope you will read the Lord’s explanation of it in verses 14-20 in that 4th chapter. But the section that caught my attention most of all were these verses related to fallow ground and weeds and thorns:

“And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.”

As I worked to commit the verse in Hosea to memory, I wondered what are the weeds and thorns in my life? Where has my soil become hardened against the promises, exhortations, and warnings of Scripture? What attitudes do I need to ask the Holy Spirit to dig up and cast from my heart that make me unfruitful for the Master?

It is surprisingly easy for my soil to become hard and overgrown with weeds.