Monday Reflection – July 13, 2020
Breaking up Our Fallow Ground

Break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. Hosea 10:12

When I was younger and growing up in Bethany, I would hear preachers and evangelists at crusades urging the people to give their lives to the Lord. One of the popular sayings that I believe I heard was, ‘Break up your folly ground’. Long after did I realize that the Bible actually says here in Hosea 10:12, ‘Break up your fallow ground…’ And yet, in the context of Hosea, to have a fallow ground, which is a hardened heart, is truly a folly, a lack of good sense, a foolish act.

This love affair between God and the people of Israel is dramatically depicted through the marriage of Hosea and Gomer. The promiscuous and unfaithful wife Gomer represents the people of Israel, while the faithful husband Hosea represents our ever-faithful God. In Hosea 10, God offers further analysis of the depth of the sinful state of Israel. God blessed Israel with material abundance, but they spent it on themselves and their own idolatrous desires. Due to their divided and insincere hearts, God pledged to break down their altars to pagan gods and ruin their sacred pillars made unto idols. Foreign powers would dominate Israel and the land would be overgrown with thorns and thistles due to the desolation of the exile that they would experience.

Amazingly, in the midst of the promised judgement, God counsels Israel by telling them to admit to their sins and submit to his chastening. What a powerful demonstration of love!! He would punish them, but it would be for their own good, and if they obey him, they would be restored. In this counsel God commands them to break up their fallow ground. This farming imagery is about ground that has not been ploughed for more than a year; ground that is hard and stubborn, resistant to the seed. It does little good to sow seed on fallow ground; it must be broken up first. It is about sowing the seed of the word of God which seems to have little effect because it falls on fallow ground. This is hard ground that will not allow the seed of the word to penetrate and become fruitful. It is useless soil.

But how does Israel, and by extension us, break up our fallow ground? God offers the solution. We need to seek the Lord and not ourselves or our idols. When? We need to do it now. It calls for immediate action, for the season is passing and if we do not get the seed in the ground, the early rain will be past, and our fields will be unfruitful. Not just that, but the longer we wait, the tougher the soil becomes until we lose the appetite for God and his word, become unresponsive to his clarion call, and develop seared consciences. When we break up the fallow ground of our hearts, God will rain down righteousness upon us.

It is no wonder that the Bible says in Hebrews 3:15, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” We must till the soils of our hearts so that God’s word can penetrate it and find root. When God’s word takes root in our hearts, the transformation is indescribable and our connection and worship to God is just fabulous!

Jermaine Gibson