The choking thorns
Distraction as a weapon
In Jesus' parable of the sower, one seed neither lands on the path nor withers on rocky ground. It falls among thorns, takes root, even begins to grow — and is then slowly strangled. The cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches, Jesus explains, choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. This soul is not attacked head-on. It is simply crowded.
This is one of the enemy's most effective and least dramatic strategies. He does not need to make you renounce your faith; he only needs to make you busy, to fill your life so full of cares and concerns and good things that the word of God is quietly squeezed out. The thorns are not always sins; often they are simply the legitimate cares of an overcrowded life. They choke not by opposing the seed but by competing with it.
Notice how undramatic this ruin is. Nothing is uprooted; everything is merely overgrown. The faith is not denied, just crowded into a corner until it bears no fruit. This is why a full, frantic, distracted life is so spiritually dangerous, however respectable it looks. Guard the seed not only from open attack but from the gentle, suffocating press of too much — for distraction kills as surely as opposition, only more quietly.
“The cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.”
— Jesus, explaining the sower — Matthew 13:22 (WEB)
Clear room for the word to bear fruit — guarding the seed not only from open attack but from the suffocating press of an overcrowded life.
“Turn my eyes away from looking at worthless things. Revive me in your ways.”
We guard the front gate against open assault and leave the windows wide to a quieter thief — the press of cares and good things that never attacks the seed, only crowds it. The interior work is to name the overcrowded life as the spiritual peril it is, however respectable it looks, and to fight for room, since a faith need not be uprooted to be made fruitless, only choked.
This week, identify the thorns crowding the word in your life — the busyness, the cares, the worthless things your eyes keep returning to — and deliberately clear space, removing or reducing one of them to give the seed room to grow.
The enemy rarely bothers to tear up your faith when he can simply bury it under cares, concerns, and a hundred legitimate goods until it bears nothing at all. Clear deliberate space for the word, and the seed grows the fruit his crowding was meant to prevent.
We brace against the dramatic threats to faith — open opposition, obvious temptation — and leave ourselves wide open to the quiet one: distraction. The enemy rarely needs to uproot the seed of the word in a busy modern soul; he only needs to crowd it, filling life so full of cares, concerns, and even good things that faith is slowly choked into fruitlessness. The thorns win not by attacking but by competing.
This is why the overcrowded life, for all its respectability, is spiritually perilous. A faith does not have to be denied to be neutralized; it only has to be crowded out, squeezed into a corner of a life too full to give it room. Much of what chokes us is not sin but mere busyness, the deceitful press of too much. So fight for room: turn your eyes from the worthless things that crowd the seed, and clear space for the word to bear the fruit it cannot bear while strangled.
- Is the word being crowded out of my life rather than uprooted?
- What thorns — even good or legitimate cares — are choking the seed?
- Where do I need to clear space for faith to bear fruit?
Lord, my life is so crowded with cares and concerns and good things that your word is slowly choked. Turn my eyes from worthless things. Clear the thorns that strangle the seed, and give it room in me to grow and bear fruit. Amen.