Daily Dose of the Word of God - Psalm 119: 9-11

Erin Pacheco, Director of Worship

Transcript

Erin Pacheco  0:08 

Welcome to Elmhurst CRC’s Daily Dose of the Word of God. It’s Friday, July 26, and Sunday is coming! I’m Erin Pacheco. It’s the season of green and growing things, our spiritual lives included! This summer we are sitting at Jesus feet and listening to his parables: stories that shed meaning on our lives. This week we are reflecting on Jesus’ story about a farmer who sows seed in a field – and how the kind of soil the seed falls in determines what kind of plant it becomes and how much fruit it bears. The seed, says Jesus, is the word of God. Psalm 119 – the longest psalm in the Bible by far – is a long acrostic poem designed to help us understand the value of the word of God. Here are just a few verses:

Erin Pacheco  1:03 

How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

Erin Pacheco  1:24 

“I have hidden your word in my heart” – like a seed planted deep in the soil.  I am a pretty lousy gardener. The past few summers, I’ve been trying to learn how to grow tomatoes. I was told that tomatoes need a lot of sun to thrive. We live in the city, with a small shady backyard, so there’s not a lot of space and not a lot of sunlight. The first year, I put a tomato plant in a small container, filled it with good soil, and placed it on our sunny front porch. It grew 3 tomatoes all summer. The next summer, I found the one spot in our backyard that gets some long afternoon sun and put my tomatoes in a larger container back there – again, filled with good soil. We got maybe 20 tomatoes that summer.   But last year, I scrapped the container approach and bought a raised garden bed. I set it up in that sunny spot in the backyard, filled it with good soil, and planted 3 small tomato plants. When those plants matured, they gave us hundreds and hundreds of tomatoes – enough to share with our neighbors. I was blown away. Why the change? It turns out, moving my tomatoes from a shallow container with a bottom to a raised bed on the ground allowed them to grow deep roots, and get taller and stronger - and bear more fruit. That’s what happens when we hide God’s word deep in our hearts. We become more mature and more fruitful. And sometimes that involves letting God remove the barriers that are keeping us from developing a deep root system – like those shallow containers were keeping my tomatoes from thriving. 

Erin Pacheco  3:25  

Let's Pray. God, as we listen to your word this weekend, please open our eyes to anything that might be causing our faith to be shallow and fruitless – anything that is keeping your word from going deep into our hearts. Help us to be good soil, where your word can grow and bear much fruit. Amen.