Matthew Costner

I don’t know about you, but I really want God to use me in mighty ways, and bless me! To the point that when I see God using other people in ways that I want to be used, I get jealous. Sometimes I get discouraged and more often than that, frustrated.

Tonight, I have to admit that I have been sitting in my room listening to all sorts of Christian music, reading blogs, and even listening to sermons only to fall into feeling jealous and frustrated. I have started thinking things like, “who are they?” and “why is God using that person and not me?”

If you are like me, you have heard phrases like “your times coming, be patient!” I have even found myself telling people and texting friends that “God is for you and not against you.” All those things are true, but in my life there seems to be something missing. It’s like I know all that stuff in my head, but I don’t really know how much of it is truly in my heart. I can encourage other people to believe it, but my belief seems so little.

To overcome this issue of coveting and disbelief in my life I have been reading in Scripture to try to understand and grow. The thing that hit me the most was in Mark 4 which is the very next verses we come to. I was proud Jesus used some farming language to tell this story since I grew up in the country. I guess it helped me understand him a little more than I typically do. Not that I fully understand what He said, but He basically reminded me that the condition of the soil determines the potential for growth.

Ask any farmer and he will tell you that throwing seed down on the ground is not the best method for planting it. The soil has to be good and ready for it. The same is true concerning the Word of God, or as Luke 8:11 calls it, “the seed.” When I allow frustration, jealousy, and discouragement to dwell in my heart, the condition of my soil (heart and spirit) is not good and thus not ready for seed. In other words, the seeds planted in my life through reading Scripture, listening to Christian music, and even sermons do not have the potential to grow and produce fruit.

This means hearing God’s Word isn’t enough in our life. We must allow it to penetrate our heart and minds. When we allow God to really dwell in our hearts and not just our minds I believe we can’t help but be a changed person, and thus feel blessed. James 1:22-25 says this “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law (meaning the love of Christ) that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.”

The truth in my own life is that I’ve been worried about the wrong thing. I need to concentrate on the condition of my heart and spirit so I can let the truth of God dwell in me verses getting caught up in who God’s using or not using in the world. If I want to be used by God and be blessed I must live in the freedom of Christ, but while living I must allow Christ to dwell in me. The same is true for you. So what do we do then? We prepare the soil.