A Dead-End Street

Mark 4:1-20

How does the lesson on the Sower and the seeds or the word, play out in life, in your life?  I’ve never given any thought to that question until today, how did the Sower’s words take root in my life?  Now from the time I could walk and remember when the church doors were open at Ebony Acres Baptist Church we headed that way.  We lived on Liberty Dr. and no matter how you went to Hall Street it was a two to three-mile walk.  And we did not own a car, so we always walked at least to church, and sometime in lousy weather someone would bring us home.

Now at home mother and dad were the sower of the word, Mom more than Dad, and at church, it was the pastor and my teachers. Through my teachers and at home we heard the many stories of what God did for Daniel, David, and about Moses, Abraham, Jacob, and Jesus, and His disciples, and many others.  I liked those stories, I liked being with other kids, but all that sitting still and being quiet when we could be climbing a tree or being an Indian scout, I did not enjoy.  So though I heard the word, and I often was required to put it to memory, I was not thinking about applying it to my life.  So that was a time in my early life when I did not come to Jesus, and He states, “And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.”  I now understand that Satan has a goal for each of our lives just as God does; yet his goal is very different from God’s.  Jesus said He came that we might have life and have it to the full.  But Satan’s goal is to steal, kill, and destroy, and it was his goal to keep me seeing my teachers as preventing me from having fun.

As I got older say five or six years old, there were times of conviction, and yet my soul was full of me by this time, and it fell on rocky ground, and there was time of what looked like spiritual growth, but it did not take root.  I was about 12 or so when a young man who worked with the youth ask in a church service, if I was a Christian, I was sitting with all my friends and it was a small building, I just knew everyone heard him.  I said no as quiet as I could, and then it seemed even lower he ask, don’t you want to be a Christian?  I was so embarrassed and without replying I did what mother always said never to do, I walked down to the front of the building and told the pastor I wanted to be a Christian.  It was a very emotional time, I became a Baptist, I joined the church, but I did not come seeking Jesus, I did what was expected of me.  And I believe it was like the rocky ground.

In High School I was willing to hunt with anyone who was popular, I was seeking the world and what it offered, and carried that into my early twenties and marriage.  But what I did not understand about God is that He loves me too much to allow this deception of Satan to keep stealing all that God had planned for me.  God first changed the man who had cut my hair since I was thirteen from a man of the world to a messed up guy who wanted to please Jesus.  Bob my barber asked me to a Bible study and I went because I could not believe He would go to a Bible study.  It took place every week on Wednesday at noon at the Holiday Inn on Hwy 9, and first we went to the buffet and got our food and then into a room, there were only six of us.  It was not a fun time, and I made some decisions that day never to come back, and not to go back to Bob’s shop for haircuts.  The very next week I was back for more, and I would change my schedule to make those meetings.  Six months later in a hotel room in Victoria, Texas, I ask Jesus to come into my life, and He did, and it was the beginning of Him changing my desires and heart.  And this is the excellent news He is still doing that today.

I was 27 years old before I listened, before I understood I was on a dead-end street headed to Hell.  I’m now 75 years of age and still open to listening to what God and His word have to say, and my goal is to obey and bring honor to my Redeemer, my Creator, and my LORD.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice