Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You

by John Ortberg

How does the world we live in keep us from attending to our souls? Jesus told a story about this. It’s of such importance that this story is the first of his recorded in the gospel of Mark and the one parable he fully interpreted to his disciples. It’s a story about seeds, a sower, and some soil. In a story like this one, it helps to notice what are the constants and what are the variables in order to understand Jesus’ point. The seed is a constant. This is not a good story about good seeds and bad seeds. The seed will take root given half a chance. The seed is a little picture of God’s desire and action to redeem souls. The sower is a constant. This isn’t a story about good sowers and bad sowers. The first thing we notice about him is how generous he is with the seed. He scatters it everywhere. It is the soil that gets interesting. The soil is the variable. And for “soil,” we might replace it with the word soul. The closed soul is death. The receptive soul is life.