Break Up Your Fallow Ground

Got Any Fallow Ground?

/ Bill Jones / Leave a comment

Break Up Fallow Ground

“Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.” Hosea 10:12
(For those unfamiliar with the term, fallow ground is ground that is left untended and unproductive. Breaking it up means plowing it to remove the weeds and get it ready for sowing seed and being  productive.)

Someone asked me the other day how my garden was going. I’m thinking they could have been referring to the theme I adopted for my retirement – “Break up Your Fallow Ground.” In the last couple of years, I’ve written and talked about my need to break up the fallow ground in my garden after a time of neglect.

I replied that I had thought long and hard about it but hadn’t made any progress. I told them I definitely decided I don’t need a big garden. When two tomato plants can supply all Sharon and I want for the summer, it’s hard to take the time and effort to plant and tend a row of them. Since Sharon no longer does any canning, you can apply that to most everything that would be grown in a big garden. But I still want to rebuild the raised beds, re-establish the cypress mulch paths, and grow a few things in part of the garden. So, maybe as the weather cools, I’ll make it out there to do some work.

But, I’ve discovered in the last couple of years that the most important “fallow ground” we need to break up isn’t “out there”, it’s within us. The Scripture above doesn’t say go out and plow up your backyard and plant a garden. It says that we should open our heart and renew our mind with the Word of God and that we should diligently pray. It says we should obey and follow Jesus (Love the Lord, Love your neighbor.) It says we should get rid of the weeds in our hearts and mind. As Hebrews 12:1 in  effect says ”lay aside every weight (distraction) and the sin that holds us back and run the race of life God has given us.”

I’m thankful the Lord has shown me areas of my “fallow ground” and helped me to start breaking some of them up. The largest chunk of rock-hard land he’s shown me concerns The Great Commission. Jesus commanded us to be witnesses and make disciples for Him. Yep, the dreaded “evangelism.” Our Bible Study class did a study on evangelism and it opened my eyes to what I was more or less ignoring. Other members of the class (and some not in the class) agreed they had, too.

But we’re working on that now. The word “evangel” means good news—the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s become clearer to me that while we should be ready to explain the basics of the Gospel (to evangelize) if opportunities arise, The Great Commission covers much more than that. It involves showing Christ in us to those around us. Telling of our relationship with Him—what He has done for us. It’s being part of the community and going out of our way to help others and to make friendships and build relationships, with believers and unbelievers alike, to open doors of opportunities to show and tell the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s inviting someone to Church or someone to return to Church. Or checking up on someone who’s been absent from Church. Etc. Etc.

So, if the Lord has used these words and His Scripture to reveal some of your fallow ground, pray hard, and get to work plowing it up! God will help as He promised.

Captain Ahab, Khan and Diotrephes

/ Bill Jones / Leave a comment

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I thought of the novel Moby Dick today. In case you forgot – Moby Dick, the great white whale, bit off Captain Ahab’s leg, and Ahab spent the rest of his life in hatred, peg legging around his ship as he sailed the ocean chasing the whale. The most memorable lines from the book were the epithet that Ahab screamed at Moby Dick as they battled to the death (or at least Ahab’s death).
I think it was memorable, also, because those same words were what Khan cursed at his longtime nemesis, Captain Kirk, in the final battle of the movie Star Trek II– the Wrath of Khan, as Kahn set off the Genesis machine to destroy both of their spaceships. (Captain Kirk and the Enterprise survived of course)
Ahab and Khan said: “To the last, I grapple with thee. From hell’s heart I stab at thee. For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.”
What a terrible way to spend and end a life.
Alistair Begg is preaching a sermon series called “Useful to the Master.” He was preaching from 3rd John and mentioned Diotrephes, who the Apostle John describes as a malicious malcontent. Then John mentions Demetrius as having a good testimony from everyone. Alistair Begg said Demetrius, unlike Diotrephes, was useful to the Master. And then said, to the effect, “wouldn’t that be a great testimony to be able to have on your gravestone – “He (or She) was useful to the Master.”
So, I thought of the end of life, and with the description of Diotrephes, Ahab’s and Khan’s final words came to mind. I thought of, instead of hatred, ending life like Demetrius, having been useful to the Master.
So rather than ending so pitifully with such hateful words, like Ahab and Khan, may we work every day to be useful to the Master and may the Lord bless us to be able to say “To the last, I have fought the good fight. From Heaven’s doors, I behold Your glory. For love’s sake, with my last breath on earth, I will praise thee, my Lord and Savior.”

Joseph and Our Hard Times

/ Bill Jones / Leave a comment

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Last week my Bible reading included Genesis chapters 39 and 40. Joseph’s brothers had sold him to a caravan of travelling merchants, and he ended up in Egypt as a slave to Potiphar, an official in Pharaoh’s court. Potiphar’s wife “cast her eyes” on Joseph and tried to seduce him.    Joseph refused her over and over but one day she caught him alone in the house and grabbed him. He pulled away and ran but she held onto his coat and he left it behind. Potiphar’s wife yelled out and lied that he had tried to assault her. The result was that Joseph ended up in prison even though not guilty.

After two years, Joseph was released from prison because God enabled him to interpret  Pharaoh’s dream about seven good years and seven years of famine that were coming. Joseph told what the dream meant and also gave a plan to deal with the famine. The plan pleased Pharaoh and his advisors, and Pharaoh made Joseph second in command because it was obvious to him that     Joseph was wise because God was with him.

About that time in the chapter, my brain began wondering about a possible scenario. Say, two or three months after Joseph became second in command, he called his administrative assistant. “Here, Hapusenaram, take this note over to Mrs. Potiphar. Tell her to come to Pharaoh’s palace, where I’m second in command, by the way. I’d like to talk with her a few minutes.”

Wouldn’t that get her excited about what Joseph might do and say? I have a hint of what I might do and say in that situation and it might not be nice (We can deduce that because my mind wandered in this direction in the first place). But I also think we can deduce what Joseph would say based on what he later told his brothers about being sold by them: “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”

Those words can easily roll off our tongue, but it takes a work of the Holy Spirit and much work by us to have them come from our heart. So, we pray and work against our wandering mind so that we can mean it when we say “God is good—all the time!” – no matter what situation we’re in.

And in the End……..

/ Bill Jones / Leave a comment

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We went through a course at work many years ago on Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. One of the habits was: “Begin with the end in mind.” In the postscript, beyond the business aspect, of his book, he explained the life aspect rather starkly. What do you want people saying about you at your funeral? Figure that out and live toward it.

Along those same lines of thought, my Uncle Ivy once told me he had spent a night in his recliner praying and meditating while considering much that same question—what kind of man did he want to be? He concluded that he wanted folks to think of him and say, “Ivy Spivey is always willing to help in any way he can.” (And he always was.)

In another course at work we were required to develop a personal mission statement. I didn’t think a lot about it and just took the Boy Scout Oath as mine. That is a great statement and living by it is certainly a good “mission.”

But, through the years I’ve thought more about my life’s mission, as Steven Covey suggested and as Uncle Ivy did. My latest rendition is:

  1. The only things that really matter in life are God and other people – so live like it. (You may recognize this is a paraphrase of the two great commandments Jesus gave – Love the Lord, and Love your neighbor. I was thankful when I realized that.)
  2. Do the right things – for the right reasons. (It’s obvious The Bible tells us to do the right things and not do the wrong things. But 1st Corinthians chapter 13 (“the love chapter”) makes it clear that without the right motivation, particularly love, doing the right thing means nothing. See also the Sermon on the Mount and what I call the “woe” chapter—Matthew chapter 23)
  3. Pay Attention (If we don’t, we’ll miss opportunities to do the first two. Isaiah chapter 42 mentions looking but not seeing and listening but not hearing.)

I’m not writing those points here because I’m always successful in following them – The older I get, the more I realize how pitiful my results often are. And, I’m not saying you should take them as yours. I’m just suggesting as we go into this New Year, along with making resolutions like eating healthier and exercising, which are still good resolutions, we also spend time in prayer and meditation and, as Jesus said, consider the “weightier matters of…justice, mercy and faithfulness.”  (Matthew 23:23)
Micah 6:8  “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”