Pastor's Corner: Pick rocks, then they are gone

Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

Currently in our area, harvest is underway. The combines work long days bringing in the crops. When you ride in a combine you look down and see the crop. Hopefully you do not have rocks in the field that can damage your equipment and interrupt harvest.

The soil of our hearts determines the crops that we will have in our lives. Mark 4:8 states, “Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.”

When I was 12, I started picking rocks on a farm in north-central Montana. The farm owner had his sons and several kids work to gather rocks from the summer fallow. We would pick the rocks by hand and throw them onto the bed of an old truck. If there was a big rock we would use a bucket tractor and roll the rock into the bucket and then the tractor operator would dump the rock into the bed of the truck. The work built discipline in the rock pickers and provided a necessary service for the farmer. I learned that not only do rocks damage equipment but also that you can’t raise wheat under a rock. The landowner’s theory was that once you picked a rock, it was gone.

Forty years after I picked my first rock I spent a couple of days helping a friend pick rocks. Now there are rock rakes that rake the rocks out of the earth and line them up in a neat line. Then there is a machine that drives over the rocks and picks them up and deposits them in a bucket.

When the bucket is full the operator dumps the rocks into an old truck that carries the rocks away. The work in the truck is dusty but it is rewarding to see the clean field and the huge pile of rocks that came off the field.

The fields of our hearts may still have some rocks that need to be dealt with. Sins such as unforgiveness, pride, jealousy, greed and gossip are just a few that come to mind immediately. The Bible teaches us that if we confess our sins then He is faithful to forgive us and to separate us from our sins as far as the east is from the west. God even chooses to forget our sins. Therefore, in our prayer life, let’s not remind God of the sins we have committed after we have confessed them and received forgiveness for them.

The Devil is the accuser of the brethren. As believers in Jesus we are adopted into God’s family and we are co-heirs with Jesus. Let’s guard our hearts and our minds and quickly deal with sin in our lives as soon as we are aware of it.

Some famous Bible characters were guilty of what I call big rock sins. Moses was a murderer and David was a liar, an adulterer and a murderer. Yet God used these men in incredible ways. David was probably the best repenter that I have found thus far in the Bible. What a gift we have to be able to confess our sins to the Lord and receive His forgiveness.

Last Sunday after church, I rode in the combine with my first boss and farmer friend. As we were cutting beautiful winter wheat, we had to cut around a large rock that was marked with a stake in the field. You could not tell that the rock was big from the combine but years ago we could not pick the rock, and we still do not know just how big it is. Eventually, that rock will come out, but it will take some big equipment and a plan to get rid of it. I am anxious to see just how big that rock is and what size hole in the earth its absence will leave.

When God is dealing with us He educates us down to the last scruple. He will help us pick the small and the large rocks from our hearts. Our job is to guard our hearts and work to make sure that our soil is good soil for His Word. May we allow the Holy Spirit to show us what rocks we need to pick this week.

May God bless you big.

Kevin Barsotti

Ark Church