It's marvellous when everything works out just right: when the key fits the lock and the answer satisfies the question.  The seed of God's Word is always good and has huge potential, but it needs a receptive heart in which to grow.  In the Parable of the Sower (Mark 4:1-20), from which these verses are taken, four different soil-types are presented – representing different ways in which people respond to God's Word.  In the first, the path is hard; in the second, the rocky ground is dry and shallow; in the third, the thorn shrubs overwhelm new seedlings by blocking out the light; and lastly, the good soil in which seeds germinate and flourish into a large crop.  But note that the seed is the same.  God's Word, like God Himself, never changes and is always potent (Hebrews 13:8; Isaiah 66:10-11).  

The logic track from sowing to reaping seems very simple.  People hear the Word of God and are transformed.  Can it really be so simple?  Yes, unless other issues get in the way.  All the other soil types present barriers to either hearing, believing (Luke 8:10) or changing.  Jesus was preparing His disciples as trainee apostles for the hard work of gospel proclamation where rejection, abuse and persecution would become real and personal (John 15:18-21).  It seems that most of those men, and many others, died violently at the hands of those for whom the gospel was a threat.  Despite that, the seed of God's Word continued to grow in receptive hearts as it does today.  The fruitfulness of the Word continues even when the sower is eliminated (John 12:24).  

When God's Word meets a heart that is hungry for truth and prepared to give Jesus the time and space to take ownership of the life, big things can happen (Colossians 1:6).  It will be a heart where over-busyness is disciplined out, when ambition is shaped by doing God's Will, and where every worry is submitted to God's solutions (Philippians 4:4-7).  Thirty, sixty or a hundred per cent profit would be considered very good in any business; but God has designed His seed for ultimate productivity!  Jesus, speaking about Himself, said that if a seed 'dies' it will produce much fruit - His one death has produced life for an infinite number who will trust in Him.

There is no limit to what God will do through our lives when we allow His Word to take root, and we cherish it above all else.  So why do we have such small expectations?  The problem is that we look at ourselves as a load of dirt, instead of seeing God's Word as the life-giving seed.  The reality is that we are a load of dirt - and that is just the place where God's Word is designed to take root!  The change is as great as from ploughed furrows to hectares of golden corn.  Never underestimate the transforming power of God's Word.