Devotionals from my Bible app: Breaking Hard Ground (Hosea 10:12)

Breaking Hard Ground


Imagine yourself as a farmer, and your life is a vast field. You sow seeds on soil sparingly, and these seeds represent your intentions, choices, and actions.

Hosea uses a similar analogy in Hosea 10:12 to describe God’s people. Israel had sown seeds of sin and unrighteousness, causing the soil of their hearts to become unreceptive to God's commands. And right as God's people were about to reap a harvest of God’s judgment, the prophet Hosea spoke with urgency:

"Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD until he comes and showers his righteousness on you."

Hosea 10:12

Just as a farmer reaps far more than they sow, our God promises that we, too, will reap what we sow (Galatians 6:7-9). But, this verse also shows us it’s not enough to sow righteousness. We must also break up the uncultivated ground (Hosea 10:12).


Our hearts become like idle ground when we allow it to grow hard and stubborn—resisting God's Word and work in our lives. But God wants His people to prepare the soil of their hearts to receive the seed of His Word by seeking Him. Seeking the Lord is like the early rain in farming season; it’s that essential ingredient that softens the soil and readies it for growth.


Don't wait. Seek Him eagerly and expectantly today. Meditate on Hosea 10:12; let it move you to examine your own life: Are you sowing seeds of righteousness and reaping the fruit of unfailing love?


It is never too late to seek the Lord—turn your heart to the One who promises to shower His abundant mercy and grace upon you.

Note after sharing the devotional: one thing I have to confess regarding these devotionals is that, these often come with prompts like the one shown in the image above, and I habitually gloss over it. I can make excuses one way or another about why I've glossed over these, but it always boils down to the question of whether I am willing to work on myself today. After a lengthy season of constant mental, spiritual, and emotional challenge, I got to a point where I was done with trying to better myself because I was primarily surrounded by others who either were outright unwilling to work on themselves, or would say they were willing but then not back it up with action (in other words, lying). This was not the first time I dealt with this, but rather, the latest in a series of seasons of different persons where I experienced this. The thing though is, there comes a point where that no longer matters. What God cares about is obedience, regardless of who or what is around me.

So, as far as the above question: how will you live in obedience today? ... answering this took me down a bit of a rabbit trail. There is a sort of partner passage that now regularly comes up when I think of soil in Biblical contexts, and it's what Jesus has to say about the different soils and how they receive the Word of God (courtesy of the Parable of the Sower):

1 On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. 2 And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.

3 Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. 8 But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Matthew 13:1-9, NKJV

Further down in this chapter, Jesus' disciples ask Him why He spoke so often in parables, and this is the one parable in the Gospel accounts where He not only answered their question (see Matthew 13:10-17) but then went on to explain the above (see Matthew 13:18-23) and how the different soils represent the different states in which a person's heart can be, and more crucially, how that might affect their chances for receiving salvation.

One of the newer areas of personal growth and discovery (post-therapy) I've been encountering is realizing how "slow on the uptake" I tend to be when coming across new situations or situations that are beyond the scope of my own thinking and understanding. I still struggle mightily with it, and with the expectations of having already known something that I've never come across before. My regular defense is: if it doesn't occur to me, it doesn't occur to me. How in the world was I supposed to know about that if no one ever tells me in advance? Why am I being blamed for not already having known that when I had no way of knowing it before? And so on.

To the untrained eye (even mine sometimes!) it may appear that Jesus is being unfair not only when judging people but also potentially uncaring in what appears to be determining one's chances for receiving the real truth and becoming saved. He makes it clear that the standards for holiness and righteousness (requirements for entering the kingdom of God) are still exceptionally high, so high that, without receiving Him and His righteousness, make such entry impossible. However, looking across all of Scripture, I do have some encouragement to offer both myself and you on this front, including the fact that Jesus is fair and does care. First, two verses that I know are well-known across most of Christendom, including perhaps the most well-known verse of all time:

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. John 3:16-17, NKJV

The above points out Jesus' mission statement for His ministry of salvation and reconciliation to God via His eventual atonement for all our sins. (See Matthew 27:45-54) In the below verse, Jesus reminds us that we have an enemy who hates Him so much by trying to destroy us, His creation, and who we have to constantly fight (by fighting the good fight of faith):

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. John 10:10, NKJV

Next, regarding the issue of soil, I present today's passage as a message of hope that one's soil can be changed (in other words, there is hope that anyone with stony soil or thorny soil can be changed to have good soil like Jesus talked about):

Sow for yourselves righteousness;

Reap in mercy;

Break up your fallow ground,

For it is time to seek the Lord,

Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.

Hosea 10:12, NKJV

Next, even in Scripture, it is acknowledged that the sole weight of responsibility does in fact not fall on the person to know (and act on) the truth who hasn't been told it in the first place:

How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? Romans 10:14-15A, NKJV

Finally, below is my favorite passage to lean on regarding not only there being hope, but God Himself wanting people to receive His Word and be saved:

The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9, NKJV

Prayer: God, sometimes my heart can be hardened to hearing Your Word. Forgive me! Break apart any stubborn sin in my life. Show me how to seek You first and shower me with Your blessings. In Jesus's name, Amen.