Mark 4:1-9

Mark 4:1-9 

The Message 

  When you see someone talking with food stuck in their teeth, what's the first thing you do?  

  When you notice someone with a zipper down, what do you instinctually do?

  We naturally worry about ourselves first.  When I'm driving on the freeway and see a police car with blue lights flashing behind me, I tense up, even when I'm driving the speed limit (Life really changes when your kids can read the speedometer from the backseat and start asking why you're driving faster than the speed limit).  Why?  Because I'm worried about myself.  I exhale when the car races past, suddenly completely unconcerned about wherever they are going, as long as it doesn't involve me.  

  Every single time I read this story, I get caught up thinking about how I'm the seed that is getting strangled by the weeds.  Every single time, I worry that I'm not growing like I'm supposed to, that I've got my eyes fixed on the wrong things and my roots in the wrong place.  Every time, I experience this anxiety.  

  While it's a good thing for me to think about my roots and my growth, it's far more important to marvel at the grace of the sower, who is extravagantly generous with the seed.  I often am so concerned with myself that I take my eyes off God.  I am not caught up in awe and wonder because I'm thinking about myself.

  This is why it's so important to learn to pray the Psalms -- they teach us to spend time marveling at God and God's majesty.  God is the sower who throws love and mercy with reckless abandon, even to people who steadfastly reject God.  This is God who paints beauty in every nook of the world, even those bent on destroying beauty.  This is God who puts life at the bottom of the ocean near vents where people didn't see it for millions of years.  This is God who casts stars across the sky because God is abundance.

  Fix your eyes on God, and when we realize that it is God, and God alone, who can calm our anxious and restless hearts, the troubles of the world fade somewhat into the background as we see how the strength of God picks us up when we are weak, offers us healing when we are broken, forgives us in our sin, and carries us into eternity by the light of love.