Are we so familiar with the parable of the sower that we think we know it?  A farmer scatters his seed. Seed falls on rocks, thorny ground and good soil.  Will it grow or will it be lost?  We’d all like to be in the good ground where the seed not only grows but produces a crop.  Still, today two phrases have jumped out at me from this story; the thorns of life and a calloused heart.

That is a terrible picture! A wounded heart. A hardened heart.  A sick heart. A diseased heart.

What is the result of that calloused heart?

They cannot hear properly.  They cannot see properly.  Indeed – they have closed their eyes! They have chosen to  refuse to see.  Even if they do use their eyes, they are not fully functioning.  They do not perceive.

Imagine waking up one winter morning with sunglasses on.  Somehow you have managed to forget you are wearing sun glasses.  It has become a daily habit so that it is your normal way of life.  Even though we all know this is not normal, you have trained your eyes into believing it is so.

You see! You see everything placed in front of you, but you never know that the colours are wrong, that the outlook is much brighter, that the sources of light have a much bigger sphere.  You have limited yourself to darkness.  It is so normal to you that you do not perceive anything else.

Yet – in this passage there is no mention of defective vision.  No.  The inability to see comes from the heart, not the eyes!

If  only they would want to hear!  If only they would want to see.  That would be a road to recovery.  It would be the road to understanding.

What is affecting your life so subtly that you do not perceive it?