The Seeds of Shalom

Jesus shared the Parable of the Sower. Then He later explained the meaning more plainly to His disciples. He said that it had been given them to understand such things.

This is one of those insider-outsider things. Someone who is spiritually born and heart-led is on the narrow path. Not everything is clear to them, but they are in a position to begin understanding the nature of reality as God made it. Their hearts rule over their minds, and this is how we are designed. But we have to keep nailing Adam (our carnal nature) to the Cross daily because it doesn’t want to understand.

But the mind is designed to obey the heart, and thus to learn what God intended the mind to do. The mind is not to rule, but to execute; the intellect was granted by God to organize and implement fleshly obedience to what the heart discerns from the Spirit Realm.

Thus, somewhere along this path of increasing subjection of the mind to the heart, the brain gets used to thinking and reasoning within a different frame of reference. It can deduce abstractions of moral principle from the pattern of commands from the Spirit. It has to learn not to take itself too seriously; the brain must realize that it’s abstractions will ever be no more than approximations. But it still becomes steadily more ready to map out obedience from what it has observed coming out of the heart.

Eventually, the mind is able to relate in somewhat concrete terms what some portion of the parables mean. While such analysis will always be contextual, the mind should gradually get better at making the contextual decisions better match the ineffable truth of God burned into the convictions of the heart. Jesus gave His disciples a contextual explanation of the Parable of the Sower, as the parable itself was a contextual indicator of divine truth.

Not everything that annoys or inconveniences you is from the Devil. Your flesh still has room to improve, so one of primary elements of spiritual maturity is not taking yourself too seriously, in the sense that your flesh becomes patient with things that interrupt its plans. The flesh must be forcefully reminded that it is the servant, not the master. It will never arrive at the place where it can be the master, but it can learn to become pretty useful.

We live in a very strange context right now: God’s wrath is falling full force on the USA. In times like these, Satan and his demons are cut loose to wreak havoc in ways they normally do not operate. You will see things that will make no sense to the flesh. People will make decisions that seem completely insane. Medical issues will arise that seem to have no basis on known afflictions. Random adverse events will defy the common understanding of physics and chemistry.

Not everything you experience is targeted at you. It’s just part of living in the USA during a time of God’s wrath. How you respond is the whole point. For just as there are more curses afloat in the air, so there are blessings and miracles. The two come in the same package, because that is how God shines His glory through His people. The difference is whether the Blood of the Lamb is on the doorposts of your life. If you can grasp the pattern of the curses, you can also see the openings for seeking the Lord’s shalom.

Sowing the seeds of the gospel means demonstrating shalom in the midst of turmoil and suffering.