The Father gives Him precious seed
To sow among the sod;
A heavenly gift to a barren world,
Straight from the hand of God.
He looks for a place to plant,
Searching the hearts of men;
Too often the soil is hardened
And cannot be used by Him.
But every now and then He finds
A heart tilled and ready for seed;
And there He plants the seed of faith
In the soil of the one who believes.
Day by day the garden grows
As He sows the seed from above;
And the Spirit comes to dwell in it,
God's beautiful garden of love.
©1999 J M McIntosh
Then he told them many things in parables,
saying: A farmer went out to sow his seed.
As he was scattering the seed, some fell along
the path, and the birds came and ate it up.
Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have
much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil
was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants
were scorched, and they withered because they had
no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew
up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on
good soil, where it produced a crop--a hundred, sixty
or thirty times what was sown. (Matthew 13:3-8 NIV)
