Things that occur to you while you’re preparing a devotional (things which are probably tediously familiar to pastors and teachers already)…

And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.” (Matthew 13:3-9, ESV)

What occurred to me while reading this was, first of all (I’ve written about this here before), three-quarters of the seed is lost. Out of four kinds of soil where the seed falls, only one of them is actually arable and productive.

But the yield of the productive soil is 100, sixty, or thirty times the investment. The crop that does grow is worth the loss.

But something else occurred to me too. We’re accustomed to dividing people into “glass half full” and “glass half empty” groups. Optimists and pessimists.

God seems to think that a quarter full is just great.

Here endeth the lesson.