Today’s scripture: Isaiah 28:23-29 (NRSV) (The Message) (KJV) What might God be saying to me?
My thoughts (Steve Adams):
When this passage is read on its own, it looks like a bright, sunny section about agriculture, and how God gives people wisdom on how to best plant and tend to their crops. In fact, when I first read it, that’s what I thought. But what a difference context makes! When you start reading from the beginning of the chapter, you see that Isaiah is delivering a sharp rebuke to the people of Ephraim, which, based on Google results from several sources, appears to have been a tribe and territory of Israel during the time of Isaiah, originating from Joseph and his descendants.
The lesson from this section is powerful and encouraging though! It assures us that, after God plows up all of their lies (verse 17), God won’t stop and leave desolation. Good crops will replace the bad. This reminds me of the yearly process I observed as a child and young adult in east central Illinois, where my grandparents lived. I remember a Thanksgiving morning when I was in high school as my family drove to their house. Some of the fields, formerly filled with corn or soy beans, were desolate, without even a single plant growing on them, having been plowed to reveal acre upon acre of nothing but rich, black soil. It was actually beautiful in its own way, and totally functional, because it cleared the land, preparing it for the new crops that were to be planted the next spring. The following May, the formerly desolate land resurrected into a sea of green — visible all the way to the horizon — as beans, corn, and wheat sprouted through the ground in joyous proclamation of spring.
I think a similar process to what Isaiah describes happens to us today, on an individual level. Our minds are like a field or a garden — and, inevitably, that means there are eventually lots of weeds to remove. The weeds of our minds could be fear, greed, intemperance, or any of a million other attitudes and actions that pull us away from love and authenticity. When we abide in the renewed mind of Romans 12:1-2, the weeds are removed and God’s rich, verdant crops of dill, cumin, wheat, and barley replace them. It takes work, though — lots of diligence on our part to plow out the weeds and give space for the good plants to grow. I remember a hot July afternoon in the 1960s at the farm when my grandfather gathered a group of people to walk each row of the bean fields, pulling all of the weeds by hand that the plow couldn’t reach (a job I was gladly able to avoid, because it meant lots of hot, dirty work!). After all, my grandfather wasn’t interested in harvesting weeds when fall arrived; his goal was soy beans and nothing else. He knew they needed room to grow.
The weeds represent contradictory beliefs and attachments that pull us from what God is — love. The reality is that these contradictions, if not tended to, will sooner or later crowd out and hamper the good crops from growing freely. Even though our mind is an incredibly complex and agile instrument that can balance many things, if there are too many allegiances to concepts that contradict God, it gets confused and naturally loses focus and effectiveness. It longs for priorities and values to keep it in equilibrium, allowing us to experience the equanimity that only mentally feeding on the fruit of God’s crops can give us.
When we let go of the roots of our fears, compulsions, and regrets, it’s as if the weeds in our mind die because they’re no longer receiving rain. We simply observe and acknowledge our painful thoughts, and relax into letting them go, perhaps by saying a scripture, breathing deeply, and inviting the spirit of our Abba God into our bodies and souls, and repeating these steps as many times as is necessary. Eventually, it’s as if the ground has been plowed and only fertile soil remains — the perfect ground to plant God’s crops (choose godly values), which will grow to produce the fruit of the spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Thought for the day: Sometimes our erroneous ways feel like a security blanket. The weeds are so familiar. But once we plow them away, we experience the joy of knowing the field of our mind is in optimal condition for planting God’s crops, which will eventually grow into mature plants that bear the fruit of God’s love and power.
We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the suggestions on the How to Pray page.