Heart Gardening: Releasing Rocks and Purging Thorns

It’s possible to love God’s Word… and still have places where it hasn’t taken root.

In this episode of Seed in the Closet, Macretia Moody reflects on the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13 and the condition of our spiritual soil. Through the imagery of heart gardening, she explores the “rocks” (lies we believe) and “thorns” (unbelief and worldly cares) that can quietly prevent deep spiritual growth.

What happens when subtle beliefs about fairness, suffering, or self-reliance begin to choke out truth? And what does it look like to surrender those hidden stones to God?

This episode is an invitation to examine what’s beneath the surface — not with condemnation, but with grace.

Want to read the article: https://open.substack.com/pub/macretia/p/heart-gardening?r=4cv7cy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Transcript

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Welcome back to See in the Closet. I'm your host, Macretia Moody. Here on See in the Closet, our messages are designed to refresh, remind, and reaffirm who God is for some, and to establish engage and expose who God is for others. We are in a season of transformity transforming our minds to conform to God's image, reminding ourselves that we walk by faith, not by our feelings. This season, we have been digging into our inheritance. We've been talking about what it really means to belong to God and to live from what he has already given us. We are the inheritance of God and He is our inheritance. Our inheritance is not just something we receive one day, but something we live in every day. Through this season, we've been unpacking our identity, our inheritance, and what it really looks like in real life, understanding who we are, whose we are, that we were not just created, but we were fashioned, formed with a purpose and intention. I want to acknowledge that it's been a little quiet here since our last episode. Aside from the interview with the president of Luther Rice. in my last Transformity episode, I shared that I will be returning at the end of January. And yet, two months later, here we are. I had a timeline and God had a process. During this time, God led me into some heart gardening, working within the garden of my heart, allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal stony areas that were there, pulling out those rocks, giving them to God so that the seeds of his truth, his grace, his love, his kindness, his mercy could take a deep root within my heart and continue to grow within my heart. God began to show me where there were rocks under the surface. And that brought me to Matthew 13. In Matthew 13, Jesus tells of the parable of the sower. He talks about how some seeds fell on rocky ground and received immediate joy. But those seeds, they don't endure because there wasn't much soil. There were stones underneath the surface. and the roots couldn't go deep. And as I sat with that passage, I realized something. It's possible to love the word of God. to respond to the word, to believe the word, and still have places in my heart where it hasn't taken root. Not because I rejected it, but because something was in the way. These stones are often unbelief built on lies. Lies we believe about God, about Christ, about the Holy Spirit, even about ourselves. Some of these rocks are inherited. Adam chose to trust what he saw and what Eve said over what God said. Eve ate of the fruit and was still standing there. So he trusted what he saw. Eve was deceived. She trusted the serpent's voice over her husband's instructions. She touched the fruit and didn't die. So she ate. She trusted the wrong source. And from that moment forward, humanity inherited self-reliance and mistrust. We trust what we see, we trust what we feel, we trust what is in front of us. Instead of trusting God, even as it relates to who you are, then there are the lies we picked up along the way. They weren't dramatically introduced. Most of them are subtle. For me, it sounded reasonable. Things I absorbed without realizing it, like bad things happen to bad people, good things happen to good people. You've heard it in church. You're cursed with a curse. All things work for the good of those that love the Lord and are called according to his purpose. Then there the thorns, seeds planted by the world, seeds planted by the enemy. In Matthew 13 at verse 22, Jesus explains how the cares of this world choke out the word so it becomes unfruitful. Sometimes the thorn is a belief that I have to meet my own needs, I have to feel secure, I have to control the outcome. Even for the Christian it can look like God has given me everything I need to meet my own needs. I am secure in God because I pay my tithes, I go to church, I volunteer, I love others. I have done all this so that I can be in good relation with God. It sounds reasonable, but underneath it's a lie. which has led to unbelief. Because the truth is, we have no control. We can't control anything. We do not put ourselves in good relationship with God. Jesus already did that on the cross. So let's address those two lies I mentioned earlier. The first one, bad things happen to bad people.

It's interpreted from Malachi 3: 5:57

9, so you are cursed with a curse. But let me ask you, was Jesus bad? Of course not.

Yet Galatians 3: 6:08

13 says Christ became a curse for us and redeemed us from the curse of the law. David said in Psalms 73, he saw the prosperity of the wicked. Solomon reminds us it rains on the just and the unjust. The righteous suffer, the wicked prosper. Life is not formula based. So the other lie, good things happen to good people.

Often interpreted from Romans 8: 6:41

28, which Romans 8 is my favorite chapter, but it says, all things work together for the good of those who are called according to his purpose. However, an innocent man dying does not seem good to him or his family, but it was for God's purpose that Jesus died. Then there is Psalms 37-4. The NSRV reads, trust in the Lord and do good, dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourselves in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. I hear a lot of people say that. Won't he give me the desires of my heart? But the truth is, when we accept Jesus into our hearts, we inherit his heart. We delight in him. He shapes our desires. He rewires our heart. So our desires begin in alignment with his. For years though, my heart still believed the lie. I had to do something or I would be cursed. If anything bad happened, it because I was not good. I did not believe it in my mind, but I had not released those thorns from my heart. And those stones were choking the truth that God's love for me does not change. He loves me when I'm obedient and he loves me when I'm struggling. He loves me. Disobedience does not define our identity, nor does it make us bad. Christians cannot be bad. They are in Christ. A few years ago when we moved into our recent home, the previous owners had laid flower sod instant bloom. for instant beauty. The garden looked finished, but it was shallow. You could lay instant blooms over concrete and it would bloom, but it would not sustain deep growth. We pulled up the sod and removed the rocks and the thorns. I planted tulips and rosemary and lavender. They bloomed and they lasted for about a year. Then they died from the root. Finally, I realized there must be more beneath the surface. And the Lord showed me, while I had given my heart to Christ years ago, just like in our garden, there were still lies and unbelief in my heart choking out the truth. Another stone God revealed to me was fairness. I had equated fairness and justice as if they were the same thing. God is just. So things must be fair, equal, balanced, right? But fairness is comparison. and justice is character. God is sovereign. He is just. And sometimes things are not fair. God deals equally with us in relationship to himself. When we are standing with the heartache of not being treated fairly, we can feel like that is God that's not being fair. And we can begin wondering how can a just God allow things to be so unfair? But the reality of it is that justice is not about being fair. Justice is not measured by what is fair. God's truth remains the same regardless of how we feel. regardless of whether we believe it's fair or not.

Jesus tells us in the parable of the workers in Matthew 20: 10:35

1-16 that the workers who labor for one hour were paid the same as those who worked all day. That's not fair, but it's just because the master determines the generosity. And when God reminded me if he were fair, Christ would not have died for me, for you. God is not fair. He is just. And in Christ, I am justified. You are justified. So that stone removed. When God began revealing these rocks, it wasn't through condemnation. It was exposure with grace. It felt like a relief, like finding the source of something that had quietly stunted growth for years. and I didn't have to fix it. I just had to release it to God. We don't have to uproot the stones. We just surrender them. God uproots them. We all have to do heart gardening, pulling out stony rocks, purging thorns, lies, unbelief. Some that were passed down from generation to generation and some that have just been planted in our heart. Some we simply believed. We may know the truth in our mind, but until it penetrates the soul of our heart, it cannot bear fruit. I want my heart to be so full of God's truth that love overflows naturally, that peace flows freely, that obedience is no longer forced but formed. The only way that happens is surrender. thorns, unbelief, stones, lies, give them to God. Allow the Holy Spirit to reveal them, to break up the stony ground with the truth. So I'll leave you with this. What are your rocks? What beliefs have you carried That sounds true, but isn't. What are your thorns? Where have you been trying to secure what God has already promised to provide? What lies, distorted truth, deceptions have stunned your growth? Ask the Holy Spirit to show you so you can surrender them to him. Let's pray. Thank you, Lord God, for loving us enough to reveal what is beneath the surface. Thank you for not condemning us when you expose the lies. Search our hearts, show us the rocks, show us the thorns, show us the places where truth has not yet been uprooted. And as you reveal them, Lord, thank you that your grace allows us to surrender them. Breaking up the stony ground of our hearts, transforming us. Lord, let your word grow so deep and strong within us, releasing good fruit from us. In Jesus' amen.