Isaiah 5: 2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines.

  I enjoy raking my fingers through good, fertile, smelly soil. The other day I started to dig a hole to plant a five-gallon azalea.  The tag on the plant said to dig a hole twice as big as the plant’s root ball. Not sure if the person who wrote these directions knows anything about the soil in our foothills. I was surprised when the first spading went down three to four inches. The soil was loose, fertile, easy to dig in.  I was euphoric. I am a gardener of cultivars.
But my euphoria was short-lived. A boulder, the size of Rhode Island, prevented further digging.
Jesus talks about a soil’s condition in the gospels. There is the fertile soil and the rocky soil and the weed infested soil. But what if the soil is fertile at the top and rocky at the bottom?  A plant may flourish for a year or two, but the roots' need to go deeper will be stunted by the rocks—unless they are eradicated.  The boulders in my life—envy, lust, laziness, gossip, idols— prevent deep growth.
Recently, a good friend shared that she’s ready to go deeper with God. I want to go deeper too. I want to go more than four to six inches. I want my spiritual roots to go as deep as possible.
When I meditate on the condition of my heart, I see the upper layer of the soil as receptive, fertile, eager for planting, but when I dig deeper, I often run into boulders. But unless we dig deeply, we will never get to the boulders that prevent our growth in Christ. We need to go beyond the upper layer.

I need to pulverize the big boulders in my life (like I just did to the Rhode Island boulder).  

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