Daily Worship

A faith that endures

September 12, 2015 0 0

Mark 4:18,19

“The seed cast in the weeds represents the ones who hear the kingdom news but are overwhelmed with worries about all the things they have to do and all the things they want to get. The stress strangles what they heard, and nothing comes of it."

Mark 4:18,19  The farmers of Jesus’ day scraped off the weeds but little more than that.  Soon after sowing the delicate seedlings would be jockeying and jostling with thorns and weeds for the available sunlight and nutrients from the soil.  For people like this, life is an ’All you can eat Buffet’, grab all you can. They like their diaries, their plates and their petrol tanks full.  They have many jobs and responsibilities and are maybe quite driven, even if appearing to be capable and successful.  The time to stop and reflect on their lives, their values, things of faith is squeezed out. For some life is about acquiring things, material possessions or exotic experiences.  Others find emotional issues crowd in, loss, loneliness, family breakdown and they find when tested, the faith they had is not as real as they thought it was. In the parable the seed doesn’t die, it just doesn’t thrive, it doesn’t bear fruit (seed). Maybe today something should be given away, laid down, resigned from. 

PRAYER

Lord help me not to rush through today. 
Help now to take time to think of others,
to express my love,
to pause in prayer
and wonder at the life around me. 

Help me not to think that I need to earn approval or worth,
but to know that you love me for what I am,
more than for what I do. 
Lord Jesus,
may I recognise when I am distracted
or diverted from a proper focus on following you,
your example your teaching,
when my “Martha” dominates my “Mary”.
May any church “busyness” in my life come from a desire to love and serve in your name,
more than from my own need for approval or significance.
When dark times come may I find strength and hope in your loving presence
and a stronger, calmer life through a faith that endures.