Sacred Ground

-Written by Joy Gilman-

I love to hike. One of my favorite places to hike is Caballero Canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains of California. It's a trailway that begins halfway up the foothill and culminates at a wooden bench, perfectly perched at the top so weary hikers can admire a sunset while marveling at the San Fernando Valley below. I used to hike this path with my kids when they were young. In the springtime, white and yellow wildflowers line the pathway and delicate butterflies flutter among them. It's a worn path, beaten down by thousands of hikers' feet. Nothing grows on the path itself. The ground is simply too hard. In the parable of the soils, Jesus uses four types of soil as an analogy to represent four types of hearts. The first soil He mentions is the soil of the footpath.

"While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: 'A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown... His disciples asked him what this parable meant... 'This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.'" Luke 8: 4-9, 11-12

Why would Jesus compare the human heart to a path? A path, by definition, is "a way beaten, formed or trodden by the feet of people or animals." It is an area of ground that is unprotected, unpreserved, and the foot traffic that treads upon it is repeated and unrestrained. As a result the soil becomes compact, hardened and impenetrable. Unless a path is blocked off, it remains an available route for whoever wants to travel upon it.

Our hearts are sacred ground. They are worthy of protecting, worthy of preserving. They are the very center of our being and determine the course of our lives (Proverbs 4:23). What we allow to traipse through it matters. Sin, compromise, unforgiveness, unhealed trauma, unprocessed grief, lack of boundaries all have a hardening effect. We can't permit these things to slog back and forth. We need to address them and then guard our hearts against them. We are ultimately responsible for the condition of our hearts. May we never forget what they were created for - to house the Holy Spirit of God.