GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 4:6
The Sun Comes Up
Retailers are flooded with return items following the Christmas season—shoes that don’t fit; dresses the wrong color, rings the wrong size, or buyer’s remorse. Gyms sell memberships during January to customers who commit to improving their health or lose weight, and by March the memberships are canceled. Freshman classes are often large at colleges, but the class size shrinks during the sophomore year when the work requires sustained commitment and greater challenge. Teens often make passionate commitments at youth crusades and summer camps, and then lose interest back in their regular environments.
Jesus described a farmer who sowed seed: “And other seed fell upon the rocky ground where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up because it did not have depth of soil. And when the sun arose, it was scorched, and because it did not have a root it withered.” (Mark 4:5-6)
Like the gym membership, the freshman student, or the youth camp conversion, the seed Jesus described sprang to life. However, not having deep roots, though, the seed withered when the sun arose. The gym membership may be fun for the first week or month, but the sustained, often boring and demanding exercise schedule begins to take its toll—the sun comes up. The freshman year in college may be fun, exciting, and something new, but there are books to read, papers to write, projects to complete, and exams to take—plain ol’ hard work, and interest wanes—the sun comes up. Youth camps are exciting events. Conversions are made in this atmosphere with powerful gospel messages and surrounded by like-minded friends. However, back home without deep roots, the commitment ebbs in the face of temptations, negative influences, or other interests—the sun comes up.
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