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At both HEAR His Heart groups we learned about cultivation. Cultivate means: 1) to prepare and use (land) for crops or gardening; 2) try to acquire or develop (a quality, sentiment, or skill).
We read from Matthew 13:3-8 where the seed fell on various types of ground. Some of the seeds fell on ground that wasn't cultivated and nothing grew there. The seed that fell on the good ground and produced a crop was ground that someone took the time to cultivate and prepare for planting, then watered, weeded and fertilized the crop so it could grow. The cultivated ground produced a crop - a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.
We talked about how cultivation takes time; it doesn't happen immediately. We have to think like a farmer. A farmer doesn't plant the seed, walk away and come back at harvest time expecting a crop. He knows it requires a lot of work (cultivation) to produce crops. But at harvest time, all his hard work pays off as he gets to feast on the fruit of his labor. He gets to invite all his friends to come and feast with him.
In the book "The Circle Maker," it say, "Because we are surrounded by technology that makes our lives faster and easier, we tend to think everything should be that way. But we see in scripture things described in longer and harder agricultural terms. We want things to happen at the speed of light, instead of the speed of a seed planted in the ground. We want our desires to become reality overnight, but the Lord wants us to think like farmers."
We talked about what we want to cultivate in our lives. We planted seeds and discussed how seeds take time to grow and require cultivation. We can't plant the seed and expect something to happen. We have to water it, make sure it gets sunlight, fertilize it, weed it...it requires work on our part.
If someone want to play an instrument, he can't just buy the instrument, bring it home and set it in his room and expect to become an expert musician. He has to practice (cultivate) the instrument in order to develop his craft.
In the same book it states, "The emerging picture is that 10,000 hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world class expert - in anything. In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, the number comes up again and again...No one has yet found a case in which world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery."
We need to embrace the process and know that anything we want to do well requires cultivation and the mindset of a farmer.
We read from Matthew 13:3-8 where the seed fell on various types of ground. Some of the seeds fell on ground that wasn't cultivated and nothing grew there. The seed that fell on the good ground and produced a crop was ground that someone took the time to cultivate and prepare for planting, then watered, weeded and fertilized the crop so it could grow. The cultivated ground produced a crop - a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.
We talked about how cultivation takes time; it doesn't happen immediately. We have to think like a farmer. A farmer doesn't plant the seed, walk away and come back at harvest time expecting a crop. He knows it requires a lot of work (cultivation) to produce crops. But at harvest time, all his hard work pays off as he gets to feast on the fruit of his labor. He gets to invite all his friends to come and feast with him.
In the book "The Circle Maker," it say, "Because we are surrounded by technology that makes our lives faster and easier, we tend to think everything should be that way. But we see in scripture things described in longer and harder agricultural terms. We want things to happen at the speed of light, instead of the speed of a seed planted in the ground. We want our desires to become reality overnight, but the Lord wants us to think like farmers."
We talked about what we want to cultivate in our lives. We planted seeds and discussed how seeds take time to grow and require cultivation. We can't plant the seed and expect something to happen. We have to water it, make sure it gets sunlight, fertilize it, weed it...it requires work on our part.
If someone want to play an instrument, he can't just buy the instrument, bring it home and set it in his room and expect to become an expert musician. He has to practice (cultivate) the instrument in order to develop his craft.
In the same book it states, "The emerging picture is that 10,000 hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world class expert - in anything. In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, the number comes up again and again...No one has yet found a case in which world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery."
We need to embrace the process and know that anything we want to do well requires cultivation and the mindset of a farmer.