Wednesday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time (July 26, 2017): Memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne, Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In the Gospel reading today, let’s compare the different types of soil to the tests we face on our faith journeys. Like the farmer sowing seeds, God is always trying to bring about new growth in us, and he does everything possible to help us to become richer soil so that our lives produce an abundant harvest for his kingdom. But rich soil is fertilized soil, and you know what fertilizer is made of? Oh how stinky it smells!

The natural fertilizers that hit the proverbial fans in our everyday lives can enrich our soil. For example, when we’re so busy that we don’t take enough time to sit quietly with the Lord and pray, life gets harder. Things go wrong. Mishaps bump into us — or rather I should say, we stumble into mishaps because we’re not paying attention to God’s directions. How stinky must life get before we slow down and listen to the Lord?

When we don’t take time to humbly listen, our hardened hearts are like the path that’s been packed down so hard (usually from other people trampling on us) that the seeds lie on the surface as bird food. God’s help never has a chance to take root in us.

When we do ask God for help, he doesn’t answer our prayers like a magic genie. He waits to see how much we’re willing to trust him. He wants to increase our trust, and the only way for that to happen is for us to discover that trusting him despite obstacles and fears and personal wishes really does produce good results. But if our faith is rocky, we soon begin to tell God how he should solve our problems, as if we know better than he does about which solutions are best! This is the rocky soil in which the seeds of faith sprout and then our faith withers because we’re scorched by the trials of life.

Sometimes we listen to what others are telling us instead of trusting the inner voice of the Holy Spirit. If what we hear in prayer does not contradict scripture and Church teachings, we should dare to trust it. We all have good-intentioned advisors amongst our friends and family who have not heard what the Lord is telling us; their worldly or misinformed advice is like thorns that choke out the truth. Our soil can be rich and fertile, but if we don’t trust what God is telling us, the seeds he gave us will have no chance to do any good.

This is the lesson God taught in today’s first reading. The Israelites had need of food while they journeyed through their desert experience. They asked for help and God answered their prayers in a way that would enable them to mature in faith: “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. Gather your daily portion, but if you store up more than that because you don’t trust me to continue to provide for you daily, you’ll not be happy about the consequences.”

We all have desert experiences. But no matter how bleak it seems, God’s help is readily available and sufficient in exactly the portion that is right for us right now. It only seems bleak when we fail to follow his instructions or fail to turn to him and trust him.

To succeed as rich soil that produces good results, benefiting from God’s abundance, we have to submit to his hoe, letting him turn under everything bad that happens to us so that it rots into fertilizer that nourishes us and strengthens who we become.

Lord Jesus, give me the grace of being faithful to Your word and of receiving it humbly. May it become flesh in me and may it produce fruits of Your love. Amen.