Prayer from the Parable of the Sower

Father, the four soils embarrass me because I have been all four in the same week. Footpath on Monday when somebody quoted Mark 4:9 at me and I heard nothing. Rocky ground on Tuesday when the verse pricked me and then a phone call wiped it clean. Thorns on Wednesday — Your word and my mortgage in the same head, and the mortgage winning the argument. Maybe just a small patch of good soil on Sunday. Lord Jesus, You did not say the sower was angry at the field. You said the seed was good. Keep sowing. I do not need to feel different about my soil before I let You work in it. Soften where I have been hard. Push some roots into the shallow places. Pull up the thorns I keep watering by habit. I want to be the kind of ground that yields slowly and does not collapse the first dry week. Make the small honest harvest at the end better than a thousand quick green shoots in spring. Amen.