The Farmer and the Restless Heart
Introduction
Jab 1 - The Fantasy of Escape
This week I was listening to a podcast with one of my favourite authors, Cal Newport. He was interviewing a former journalist who now teaches at a university. A few years ago the journalist moved his family into the woods near campus. No internet. No cell reception. Just a landline. If they needed the internet, they drove into town or used it at the university. They did this to escape the constant connectivity of modern life and create a sanctuary in their home.
My first thought was, That’s a bit extreme.
My second thought was, Actually… that sounds kind of great.
Maybe you’ve had that feeling too.
You dream about quitting your job and leaving everything behind. You move to a remote location that is quieter, slower, simpler (for me it’s always a cabin somewhere in the mountains). No email, no deadlines, no notifications, no people needing something from you every five minutes.
The more honest I have become the more I see that I’m not wanting to escape my current circumstances, but rather I want to escape whatever it is I’m carrying inside them.
Jab 2 - We Are Restless
We spend a surprising amount of our lives believing that our biggest problem is where we are. So we imagine that peace is always somewhere else. A different job. A different season. A different relationship.
Anywhere but here.
More than sixteen hundred years ago, Augustine wrote a prayer that has been repeated many times since:
We are restless until we find rest in you
You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you
Link to original
This is the human condition. Restless hearts. And the problem isn’t that we desire too much. It’s that the objects of our desires (our phones, our jobs, our stuff) can never give us what we think they are promising. We are caught in a recurring pattern of misplaced desire, looking for lasting rest in what can only offer temporary relief.
Jab 3 - Esau As Example
The Bible has a story about a man like that.
Esau.
Esau comes home exhausted from hunting. He’s hungry. His brother Jacob is cooking, and Esau blurts out, “Give me some of that stew.” Jacob sees an opportunity. “Sell me your birthright.” It’s one of those moments where you want to shout at the page.
Don’t do it.
Because Esau already has everything. As the firstborn son, he already possesses a future shaped by God’s promises. A double inheritance and the covenant given to Abraham. He isn’t lacking. He’s hungry. And in one moment, his hunger becomes greater than his inheritance.
It’s not that food or desire is the problem. The problem is that, in a moment discomfort, Esau reaches for immediate relief over a future God had already given him. He exchanged what would satisfy forever for what would satisfy momentarily.
We might shake our heads at Esau. But if we’re honest, we’ve all got our own bowls of stew, our escapes from discomfort where we reach for whatever promises relief now, even if it costs us over the long term.
Right Hook - The Grace Of The Farmer
Jesus knows this about us. He knows that we have restless hearts.
And I think this frustrates God deeply. He knows what our lives can be, he desires for us to build his kingdom with him and to grow something in us. But we cannot receive the life God wants to grow in us if we’re always reaching for the next bowl of stew.
Explanation
Let’s see what we can learn about our hearts from Jesus’ teaching.
A farmer scatters seed generously across his field. Some falls on the path, some on rocky ground, some among thorns, and some on good soil. And I think that the first thing that Jesus wants us to notice is that the farmer is not careful where he scatters the seed. He sows without discrimination, almost recklessly.
God doesn’t wait for soil to become receptive, he doesn’t only plant in soil has already sorted itself out. God keeps sowing. Without discrimination. The same seed. Over and over again.
The difference is not the seed, it’s how our heart receives it.
Teaching Point 1 - The Path: A Heart That Has Grown Hard
Sometimes our hearts are like the path.
It’s ground that has been walked on so often it has become hard. The seed doesn’t even penetrate the surface. It just sits on the path until the birds carry it away.
Jesus says this is the person who hears the message but never really receives it. Not because they hate it. Because life has packed their heart down. Disappointment, resentment, distraction, and years of living too fast can harden the heart so that God’s seed lands but never takes root.
Teaching Point 2 - The Rocky Ground: A Heart That Loves the Feeling More Than the Root
Sometimes our hearts are like the rocky ground.
The seed springs up immediately. It looks healthy. It even looks successful. But underneath the thin layer of soil is rock. The roots never go deep. So when the sun comes, the plant dies.
Notice that Jesus doesn’t criticize the person’s enthusiasm, they receive it with joy. The issue is that the emotion becomes the end goal. A restless heart can seek out the feelings and experiences more than building roots. It chases the good feelings in hopes that they will sustain it. But roots aren’t built in the high moments, they’re built in the ordinary everyday. In the quiet showing up. In prayer when nobody sees. In staying when the feelings fade.
Teaching Point 3 - The Thorns: A Heart With Too Many Loves
Sometimes our hearts are like the thorns.
This one hurts us the most because nothing obviously bad happens. The seed grows. The plant lives. But it never bears fruit. Why? Because something else is already growing there.
Jesus names two things here: the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth. We either trust that because we have resources we can control our lives, or we worry that we are not doing enough in our lives. In both cases we quietly convince us that life depends on us.
That’s what every thorn does, it promises something that it can never deliver. A career. Comfort. Control. Success. Even family. None of these things are bad. They’re simply terrible gods. They cannot give us rest. Eventually, they crowd one another out.
The tragedy isn’t that the plant dies. It’s that it never becomes what it was planted to become.
Teaching Point 4 - The Good Soil: A Heart Learning to Rest
Finally, our hearts can be like the good soil.
Notice what he doesn’t say. He doesn’t say this soil is smarter, stronger, more disciplined or spiritual. The only difference with the good soil is that the seed is received. It sinks in. And then something begins to grow.
This is all God asks or wants. Because the value of good soil isn’t that it’s good soil. It’s valuable because it bears fruit. God isn’t looking for impressive people but transformed lives. Lives that produce love instead of resentment, peace instead of hurry, generosity instead of fear.
When our hearts finally rest in God, they become fruitful.
Application
So if we hear Jesus correctly in this parable, then the question is not whether God is sowing in our lives. He is. The question is whether there’s anything in us preventing his life from taking root. And that’s good news. Because it means the answer isn’t to become impressive enough for God to notice you.
So let me ask three questions.
Action 1 - What Needs Ploughing?
Hard ground doesn’t appear overnight. It forms one step at a time. One disappointment. One betrayal. One unanswered prayer. One argument you replay in your head until it becomes part of the landscape. Eventually the heart becomes so packed down that even good things struggle to get in.
And this is so tough because we often don’t even know that we are resentful. It’s not like we keep a list of resentments in a book somewhere. We need to know that ALL OF US carry hurt, abandonment and disappointment. And left unchecked, these compact into resentments.
Ploughing, is having the courage to let God break open what we’ve allowed to become hard. It doesn’t mean pretending our hurt isn’t real. It doesn’t mean trust is immediately restored. It means refusing to let yesterday’s pain decide what can grow tomorrow.
Ploughing begins with naming.
Action 2 - What Needs Weeding?
Jesus says the thorns are the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth. That life depends on us and the things we fill it with.
Weeding is the practice of asking an uncomfortable question:
What am I looking to for the kind of security only God can give?
It might be money. It might be your competence. It might be having the perfect plan. It might be always staying in control. None of those things are wrong. Until they become ultimate.
Thorns don’t usually grow because we choose evil. They grow because good things quietly become the things we trust most. And every thorn we pull creates a little more space for fruit to grow.
Action 3 - Where Do Your Roots Need to Deepen?
Roots grow in secret. They’re slow. Almost invisible. But when the summer comes, they’re the difference between a plant that survives and one that withers.
Our culture teaches us to chase intensity. Jesus teaches us to pursue depth. Depth is built in ordinary faithfulness. Opening your Bible when it doesn’t feel exciting. Praying when your mind wanders. Showing up to church when life is busy.
None of that is spectacular. It’s simply how roots grow. And here’s the beautiful thing. Fruit never worries about producing fruit. Healthy trees don’t strain to make apples. They simply remain rooted. Fruit is what happens when life flows through a healthy tree. The same is true of us.
Conclusion
When Jesus finished telling this story, he wasn’t inviting people to admire a farmer. He was inviting them to examine their hearts.
Not with shame. With hope.
Because the hero of the story was never the soil. It was always the farmer. The farmer who keeps sowing. The farmer who doesn’t give up on hard ground. The farmer who throws seed into fields that failed to produce last season. The farmer who believes a harvest is still possible.
Somewhere along the way, we’ve convinced ourselves that Christianity is about becoming impressive enough for God. Jesus tells a different story. It’s about a God who keeps coming back to fields everyone else would have abandoned.
Maybe today you’ve recognized hard places. Or shallow places. Or hearts crowded with too many loves.
Most of us aren’t just one soil. We’re all four, depending on where you look.
Augustine was right. Our hearts are restless until they rest in God. But Jesus takes that one step further. When restless hearts finally learn to rest in him, they begin to bear fruit.
Love instead of resentment. Peace instead of striving. Joy instead of endless escape. Faithfulness that survives the heat. Lives that quietly nourish everyone around them. That’s what the farmer has been after all along.
Not better soil. A harvest.
And the beautiful news of the gospel is this: Even today… The farmer is still sowing.
One Liner
We cannot receive the life God wants to grow in us if we’re always reaching for the next bowl of stew.