Preparing our Hearts for an Outpouring
Growing up in Kansas, seeing plowed fields was a regular sight especially in the spring. I remember seeing huge fields with freshly toiled rich brown dirt. What had once been a flat hard surface became row after row of overturned loose soil ready to receive the seed.
Unfortunately, there have been seasons in my life where my heart has become like that hardened soil.
Packed down by pain.
Trampled on by uncaring people.
Untended by my own apathy.
Sometimes it is just the hard things in life that pack down the soil of our hearts.
There is another type of soil that needs to be prepared to receive seed and it is fallow ground. For whatever reason fallow ground has been left alone. It could be the ground needed to rest because it had been very fruitful for that past several years. It could be the farmer got busy with another field. Maybe the farmer was indifferent or didn’t see the ground as worth the effort. Whatever the cause the ground was left fallow. Maybe a word our generation might use instead of fallow is idle.
Our hearts, like soil, can become hardened or idle, but it does not have to be a permanent condition.
In Hosea 10:12 NKJV the Lord reminds us what to do with fallow ground.
“Sow with a view to righteousness,
Reap in accordance with kindness;
Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the Lord
Until He comes to rain righteousness on you.”
Many of you, like me, have been praying for a fresh outpouring of His Spirit. Some call it revival, some call it a fresh move, some are just asking God to touch a family member. Whatever it is called, we know it is fresh and powerful and causes many to come to Him or come back to Him.
In Acts 2:1 it states, “On the day Pentecost was being fulfilled…” Now we know those early believers were gathered together maybe celebrating that Jewish feast or maybe just obeying Jesus’s word to “tarry in Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.” Luke 24:49b,
They didn’t know this was going to be THE day the Holy Spirit was poured out, but they were positioning themselves to be ready. Many have been saying or even prophesying that there is a great outpouring coming again. We, too, don’t know when this will occur but one thing I know is I want to be ready. I don’t want my heart to be so hard that the outpouring just hits the outer layer and runs off. I don’t want the seeds to perish because they couldn’t penetrate the hardened soil of my heart.
As we prepare for an outpouring of His Spirit lets prepare our hearts.
Is there someone I need to forgive for having trampled down the soil of my heart?
Do I need to sweep the corners of my heart to remove the apathy, battle weariness, or cynicism?
Do I need to worship until His presence washes over me and softens my heart?
Have I become jealous or judgmental?
Do I need to take the time to let the word penetrate deeply into my heart aerating my heart much like a gardener aerates the soil after a long, dry winter?
Lord, my prayer for myself and my friends who are reading this, is for our hearts to be ready in every way to receive all you have for us.