How Is Your Soul? The Four Soils of the Sower

Introduction

Do you ever lose things? Your wallet, your bag, your phone, or worse, your child? That is the question David Pothier, pastor of la Chapelle in Montreal, uses to open this message, on a Sunday when the church baptizes 63 people. Children, he says, "are like ninjas, they vanish without a trace." But God is looking for something too: God is looking for souls. "God is a seeker of souls."

The text for the day is the parable of the sower, in Matthew 13. The pastor first reads the parable (verses 1 to 9), then Jesus' explanation of it (verses 18 to 23), and he offers a simple reading key: you can replace the word "soil" with the word "soul." The parable then speaks of four kinds of soul.

Before going in, he reminds us what the soul is. One of the things that makes us unique as living beings is this "fragile, vulnerable and precious" thing we possess. Some people, the reductionists, do not believe that human beings have a soul; for them, we are a cluster of atoms, a biological machine. The Bible has affirmed the opposite for thousands of years. The soul is easier to illustrate than to explain: it is what you feel at the top of a mountain before the beauty of creation, before the vastness of the ocean and the sound of the waves, when you hear a baby laugh, or the first time you set foot in la Chapelle and the singing begins. And when the pressure and anxiety of life rise up in your throat, it is your soul that is being smothered.

Message Outline

1. Are You Taking Care of Your Soul?

• In our day, we are very good at taking care of the outside: fake lashes, fake nails, everything fake, "we got it." But are we good at taking care of the inside, of our soul? Not so sure.
• In 2010, in Guatemala City, an entire neighborhood disappeared in a second into a hole 65 feet by 300 feet. It is called a sinkhole: water erodes the ground beneath the surface, slowly, until the day the ground can no longer bear the weight sitting on it.
• It is a metaphor for what happens when we do not take care of our soul. At first, it does not show. The person looks fine, looks okay, maybe they do not even see it themselves. But the erosion is working beneath the surface, until the moment there is too much weight.

2. The Hardened Soul: The Seed That Fell Along the Path

• The path is the footpaths between the fields, where flocks and passersby walked. It is packed, trampled, dried-out ground. Nothing grows there.
• Is your soul hard? Is your heart hard? The pastor has noticed that the soul often hardens in people who have been wounded or betrayed. They grow a shell, become cynical, bitter, suspicious. That shell only serves to hide a fear: after a divorce, for example, the fear of being left alone, the fear that no one will be interested in you anymore, the fear for your future.
• On a hardened soul, the Word cannot take root, because the birds come and eat the seed. David Pothier uses the image of the birds at McDonald's: drop a fry on the ground by a picnic table and a little bird will grab it, not to mention the seagulls that can fly off with your whole lunch.
• The Bible warns us against a heart hardened by anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, refusal to repent. "A hardened soul is not fertile ground for God, it is fertile ground for the enemy."
• But there is hope for hardened souls, and the pastor admits that it has happened to him "so many times." If you give God just a little space to come and aerate and plow the soil of your soul, his seed is strong and persistent enough to grow. It takes someone who says: "Lord, I ask your forgiveness. Lord, I need you. Lord, come to my rescue."

3. The Shallow Soul: The Seed That Fell on Rocky Places

• The rocky places are not fields full of visible stones. You can see soil there, but only a thin layer, with a layer of rock underneath that keeps the roots from going down.
• David Pothier used to live in Sherbrooke, a city built on bedrock. In his neighborhood, nobody had a green lawn: under the thin layer of soil is rock, and the root is not deep enough to reach the water.
• A shallow soul looks for happiness in what stays on the surface. Having perfect social media and the most followers will not make you happy. Being popular on Tinder will not make you happy. Having a perfect wardrobe, a perfect condo, perfect decor will not make you happy. Having a perfect wife or a perfect husband will not make you happy.
• If there is one thing we have trouble admitting today, it is that we live in a shallow world and that we ourselves are shallow. We so love to think of ourselves as "deep," to convince ourselves that we are people of depth.
• Then, at some point, life hits: trial, tragedy, illness, cancer, grief, divorce. The crisis exposes the shallowness of our soul and we start asking: "Is this all life is? There has to be something more." There is a conspiracy against our soul to keep us in shallowness.
• There is hope for shallow souls. If you give God just a little more depth, he will take that space, stretch your roots down into the ground and bring you into depth: not a little yellow lawn, but a beautiful green one.

4. The Crowded Soul: The Seed That Fell Among Thorns

• Someone said: if the enemy of your soul cannot lead you into sin, he will make sure to keep you hyper busy. Those are the two roads he takes, because the result on your soul is the same. When you fall into sin or into addictions, something dies in your soul. When you are hyper busy, hyper crowded, something dies too.
• We are crowded by too much work, too much focus on material possessions, too much leisure. And, "just in case there is someone here," crowded by our cell phone: too many texts, too much Netflix, too much YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, too much decor, too much cottage, too much stuff.
• When there is too much noise, when you are too distracted, too much on the machine, it numbs you, and you even come to forget that you have a soul. Noise makes us deaf to the voice of God.
• The problem with a crowded soul is that it is dying without you feeling it, because you are numbed by hyperactivity. That is why it is sometimes so hard to unplug the machine. Yes, it is a dopamine addiction, but it is also spiritual: when you shut the machine off, you are exposed to your soul that is hungry, to your soul that is thirsty.
• There is hope for crowded souls. It is about coming to pull out the thorns, pulling out what is smothering your soul, giving a little more space to God and a little more space to your soul so it can tell you: "I am here, I exist, I have needs."

5. The Receptive Soul: The Seed That Fell on Good Soil

• This is what we want to be. Good soil bears fruit: one grain yields a hundred, another sixty, another thirty. God is looking for souls with good soil to bear good fruit. Not everyone will bear the same amount, but everyone will bear fruit.
• Are you taking care of your soul, or are you neglecting it? Is your soul suffocating without you realizing it? Your soul has needs. You cannot even imagine how much it needs. Theologians have spoken of the soul as the "needy man."
• To illustrate it, the pastor brings up the 90s comedy "What About Bob?". In his therapist's office, Bob lists all his fears: fear of diseases, of touching objects, of going out in public, nausea, cold sweats, blurred vision, all the way to pelvic discomfort. Then he follows his therapist everywhere, to the park, on his bike, to his home, even on his vacation, to the point of driving him crazy. Our soul is like Bob: it never has enough.

6. Infinite Desires, and Only One Infinite God to Fill Them

• It is paradoxical: human beings are limited in everything, in time, in energy, in wisdom, in intelligence. Except one thing: our desires are unlimited. Our soul is never satisfied.
• It is not abnormal to have infinite desires. That is not the problem. "The problem is trying to fill infinite desires with something finite": food, fun, sex, experiences, work, success, likes, followers, power, influence.
• In chess, the king is the most limited piece, it only moves one square at a time. But it is also the most important piece: when you lose the king, you lose the game. Your soul is limited, but when you lose your soul, you lose your life. That is why Jesus says: "For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his life?" (Matthew 16:26).
• The good news: "The infinite capacity of your soul to desire is matched only by the infinite capacity of God to give." The only thing that can bring our souls to life is God. What foolishness, believers or not, to think so often that finite things will fill an infinite soul. It does not work.
• The last verse of the day is Matthew 11:28-29: "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, and you will find rest for your souls." In that "all you," there is you and there is me. "Burdened" means it is too heavy for you to carry. And the one speaking is the Creator God, the Word, the infinite God.
• The message ends with the testimony of a recently baptized woman who tried to satisfy her soul with all kinds of things before giving her life to Jesus, then with a call: God has placed in your soul a hunger for him. Will you keep stubbornly filling it with things that can never fill it, even good things, or will you say "Here I am, Lord, I come to you, I give you my life"? It takes an infinite God to fill infinite desires.

Key Takeaways

• Your soul is fragile, vulnerable and precious. Like a sinkhole, it erodes beneath the surface long before it shows.
• The parable of the sower describes four kinds of soul: hardened, shallow, crowded and receptive. For each of the first three, there is hope, provided you give God a little space.
• The enemy has two roads to make something die in you: sin or hyperactivity. The result is the same.
• The problem is not having infinite desires, but trying to fill them with finite things.
• Only an infinite God can fill an infinite soul. Jesus invites you to come to him to find rest for your soul.

Personal Application

1. If you replace the word "soil" with the word "soul," which of the four soils best describes your soul today?
2. Is there a wound or a betrayal that made you grow a shell? What fear is hiding underneath?
3. What is crowding your soul right now: work, possessions, leisure, your phone? Which thorn can you pull out this week?
4. With what finite thing are you trying to fill an infinite desire?
5. What happens inside you when you "shut the machine off"? What does your soul tell you when you give it space?

Scriptures Quoted

• Matthew 13:1-9
• Matthew 13:18-23
• Matthew 16:26
• Matthew 11:28-29

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the four kinds of soul in the parable of the sower?

David Pothier replaces the word soil with the word soul in Matthew 13. The seed that fell along the path describes the hardened soul, the rocky places the shallow soul, the thorns the crowded soul, and the good soil the receptive soul, the one that hears the Word, understands it and bears fruit.

Why is our soul never satisfied?

The preacher explains that human beings are limited in everything, in time, in energy, in wisdom, except in their desires, which are infinite. That is not abnormal. The problem is trying to fill infinite desires with finite things: food, fun, sex, success, likes, power. It takes an infinite God to fill infinite desires.

Is there hope for a hardened or crowded soul?

Yes. For each kind of soul, David Pothier repeats that there is hope. It is enough to give God a little space so he can plow the soil of your soul, to pull out the thorns that are smothering it, and to answer Jesus' invitation in Matthew 11:28: "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest."