My husband is a pastor to an elderly audience. Consequently we spend considerable time sitting at the bedside of people who are getting ready to pass into eternity. Conversations with dying people give us harsh realities of how we need to be intentional about living without regret.

I always thought I would like gardening. Until I became master over some gardens. Then I quickly realized how labour-intensive it is, how on-your-knees it must be, how the dirt jams in under your fingernails and stays for quite some time. Perhaps because I am not a natural gardener, but a sweaty, hot, grumbling gardener, everything that grows under my imperfect watch is a miracle, worthy of celebration.

Hear and welcome. That’s what the people of the good ground do, those seeds that fell, grew, bloom and spread.

So, how do we hear and welcome God’s call on our lives? And God’s word in our lives?

Part of the answer is found in Jesus’ patient explanation of this parable to his disciples, about what happened to the other seeds that were sown.

There is a beautiful inevitability in Jesus’ teaching in this passage. Light shines. The hidden is found. Seeds sprout. Sometimes to amazing and unexpected lengths. And the Kingdom does come, whether we think so or not.

It is quite easy, especially in the North American Church, to question the church’s relevance to our culture.

One reason youth leave the Church is because they do not feel they have experienced God, especially in the area of answered prayer. That is what a recent Canadian report called “Hemorrhaging Faith: Why and When Young Canadians are Leaving, Staying and Returning to the Church” says.

In my work as a journalist, I’ve had the opportunity to interview some thinkers around this topic of unanswered prayer.

In Mark’s telling of this story of Jesus casting out demons from a man into a herd of pigs, we see details about what happened after the townspeople begged Jesus to leave their part of the country.

The people beg him to go. The man begs Jesus to take him along. What dramatically different responses to Jesus’ demonstration of power over evil.

When we feel the strangling grip of this demanding and busy world on our lives, it is good to pause and remember that we are not on our own and we do not belong to this world. We have a home in the heart of God who is good and faithful.

That thought alone should bring a sign of relief to any tired pilgrim.