Make My Heart Good Ground

I know, O Lord, and tremble to think, that three parts of the good seed fell upon bad ground.

Let not my heart be like the highway. Through hardness and want of true understanding it does not receive the seed, so the evil one comes and takes it away.

Let not my heart be like the stony ground, which hears with joy for a time, but falls away as soon as persecution arises for the gospel’s sake.

Let not my heart be like the thorny ground, which chokes the word and makes it altogether unfruitful because of the cares of this world and the deceit of riches.

Let my heart be like the good ground. Help me to hear your word with an honest and good heart. Enable me to understand and keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience, for your glory and my everlasting benefit.

Amen.

 Lewis Bayly, “Make My Heart the Good Ground,” in Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans, ed. Robert Elmer (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019), 165.