There is an amazing metaphor in Hosea 10 that really got into my spirit today. By the way, the image that comes to mind when I read these verses is a mental picture from a trip to Lancaster, Pennsylvania two years ago. I remember watching an Amish man drive his yoke of oxen with a plow through his field turning the soil over preparing to plant his crop. Verse 12 says, “Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground.” Unplowed ground is ground that has been ignored. The surface has gotten hard and nothing can be planted. And nothing grows through the surface. Hosea is telling the Israelites to break up the unplowed ground. That is the only way to prepare for whatever it is that God wants to do in our lives! By the way, I think Scripture is a plow. It turns the soil over so God can plant new thoughts in our minds and new feelings in our hearts.

Then it says, “It is time to seek the Lord until He comes and showers righteousness on you.” We can’t control the rain. But we can prepare the soil. I’m afraid that too many of us worry about rain instead of preparing the soil. Our job is to prepare the soil and seek God until it rains!

So here’s the $64,000 question: Where has your heart hardened? The key to that question is this question: where have you lost hope or lost joy? What have you stopped thinking about because it’s too painful? What have you stopped praying about because it’s too unbelievable? Where has your heart become hard? Where have you closed your mind? Answer those questions and you’ll know where you need to plow!