Episode 17: Deep roots, good fruit

Welcome back to “Babe, We Need to Talk” with Alexx Rogers! BWNTT is a sit-down chit-chat about Jesus and all His goodness! In this episode, we chat planting seeds, healthy soil and doing the work with God to cultivate fruit. 

Reading from: Mark 4:1-20, 1 Corinthians 3:6-9

Download the FREE Psalm 119, 22 Day Devotional from Babe, We Need to Talk now! https://babeweneedtotalk.gumroad.com/l/qncdu

Thank you for being here, and don’t forget to like & subscribe to help this channel grow! Follow us on socials at @babeweneedtotalk on Instagram and TikTok.

Babe, We Need to Talk is the podcast that gives you hard truths from a place of great love. We are moving past the fluff and getting straight to the grit & grace of what it looks like to live a life that reflects God’s Word and the heart of Jesus. Listen now and don’t forget to like & subscribe! 

Subscribe to my Substack! https://open.substack.com/pub/babeweneedtotalk

Bible study essentials: https://www.amazon.com/shop/clothedinstrengthetc/photo/amzn1.shoppablemedia.v1.331ee46c-1eb7-4798-8c3a-05de28c0010a?ref_=aip_sf_photo_spv_ofs_mixed_d 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hey guys, welcome back to Babe We Need to Talk. I'm Alex, your host, and as always, I'm so excited you are here today. Um, I'm really pumped for this episode. I hope everybody's having a good summer. Let me know how your summer's going below. Um I'm actually so excited I'm able to even like record again so soon because I was really worried about how um how it was gonna go with the kids' home, but we've gotten into such a good routine. It's been so nice. And I just love it so much. Last summer was a little bit rougher. So I'm really grateful that this summer has been. I know we're only like two, three weeks into it, but it has been such a fun summer. How's yours? Tell me. I love it when y'all comment and you message me and you tell me one that you've listened to the podcast and gotten anything from it, and two, just like getting to know everybody. I feel like I've made so many, um, like not just content creator friends, but like friends on here that just love Jesus or are growing in Jesus. And oh, I just love it so much. It's been really fun. We're gonna be doing the podcast every other week. I think I said that on the last one, and then I said I might want to try to do every week, but we're gonna stick to every other week for now for summer, but I do have some fun news. My husband and I recently chatted about the podcast and decided that we were paying for like the lowest plan on the place that I get my podcast from. Cause I've had a few people message me and be like, hey, I, you know, I see episodes seven, like seven through whatever, but where's episodes one through six? And while they're all on YouTube, um, I know that that's not everybody's like preferred way to listen. Um, so I have some fun news. We're gonna be re-releasing episodes one through seven this summer in between the new episodes. So every other week I'll have a new episode, and then on the weeks between, on those Mondays between, I'm going to re-release the old ones, which please be nice because I know in those first few I'm super rusty, or not even rusty because I didn't do it before, but I'm really like awkward in finding my footing and figuring it all out. So please be nice because I feel like God has given so much growth in this area. Um, like just from when I I mean, I feel like it gets easier every time, but I'm really just so grateful that God has God has just been there and he's risen my comfort level in all of it. And he's just such a good God that just gives like step by step. And I remember being so fearful to start this. I so fearful. And because I mean, I don't have the numbers, I don't have the amount of followers, my name isn't big, my name isn't known, um, which is totally okay because God's bigger than all of it. And I think that so much of us, which we've talked about this before, like so much of us think that we can't do something because we think we're not qualified, but God is the one who equips us and God is the one who qualifies us. And our obedience is what he wants. And so even if I only have five listeners on one episode, I only have five listeners on one episode. Hopefully, those five listeners walk away and they know God better than they did before. And that's the whole hope in this, you know, is that you get in the word of God and that you get to know him. And I, like I said in the last episode, I think that there is just such an identity crisis going on and we don't know who we are. And we're gonna find out who we are by learning who God is. So, anyways, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for the ones that have been here from the beginning that have listened to me stumble through all of it. I know we have like a lot of newer um listeners, which is the whole point, right? Is to grow the podcast and to grow the page. Um, we're wrapping up our James study. I think by the time this comes out, the James study will be completely wrapped up. But I had so much fun doing that. I kind of have an idea of the Bible study that I want to do next, but I'm not sure. I'm gonna pray on it a little bit more. But I really enjoyed doing James with y'all. That was so fun. Anyways, on the note that, you know, there's been so much growth, and I wouldn't say growth like numbers-wise in the podcast, although there has. I'm so, so grateful for it. I really, really am. Um that kind of gets us right into what I want to talk about today. The whole uh heart behind this podcast today is Deep Roots, good fruits. And we're gonna be getting into it. We're gonna be reading from Mark chapter four. So if you have your Bibles, if you're in a place that you can get them out and read and note take or journal or a highlight or anything, I super encourage you to do that. But if not, I'm gonna be reading it to you. We're gonna be reading it out of my new Bible, my beautiful Hosanna Revival Bible. Oh, there you go. Um, but we're gonna be reading from Mark chapter four. This is NLT. It's kind of long. We're gonna be reading chapter four, verses one through 20. So it is a good chunk of scripture. We're gonna read a read it and then we're gonna break it down. Um, and this is something that I've just been meditating on that God has been teaching me. Part of the reason I really want to talk about it. Fred and I were talking about um planting seeds, you know, in life and in small business. And I I used to have a small business and it was faith-based, and hers is also faith-based. And she was like, you know, sometimes we would have drier seasons. We're like, well, we're just planting seeds, we're planting seeds, we're planting seeds. And one day she was like, Yeah, I'm planting seeds, but like I would love to see the fruit from it. And God just told me, like the Holy Spirit whispered to me, the deeper the root, the better the fruit. And it's something I've also told myself, like, I wish that I could see the fruit. There have been times where I am obeying God over and over and over again, and I feel like I'm not getting, I'm not seeing the fruit of that obedience. And he just keeps reminding me, the deeper the root, the better the fruit. And he brought me to this. Um, this is one of Jesus, one of the parables that Jesus tells when we were reading about it in Mark. So I'm gonna go ahead and read it, and then we are gonna chat about it some more. Mark chapter 4, verse 1. Once again, Jesus began teaching by the lake shore. A very large crowd soon gathered around him, so he got into a boat. Then he sat in the boat while all the people remained on shore. He taught them by telling many stories in the form of parables, such as this one. Listen, a farmer went out to plant some seed. As he scattered it across his field, some of the seed fell on a footpath, and the birds came and ate it. Other seed fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The seed sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow, but the plant soon wilted under the hot sun, and since it didn't have deep roots, it died. Other seed fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants so they produced no grain. Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they sprouted, grew, produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted. Then he said, Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. Later, when Jesus was alone with the twelve disciples and the others who were gathered around, they asked him what the parables meant. He replied, You are permitted to understand the secret of the kingdom of God. But I use parables for everything I say to outsiders, so that the scriptures might be fulfilled. Then he quotes, When they see what I do, they will learn nothing. When they hear what I say, they will not understand. Otherwise, they will turn to me and be forgiven. Then Jesus said to them, If you can't understand the meaning of this parable, how will you understand all the other parables? The farmer plants seed by taking God's words to others. The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message, only to have Satan come at once and take it away. The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. But since they don't have deep roots, they won't last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God's word. The seed that fell among the thorns represents others who hear God's word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life, the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things, so no fruit is produced. And the seed that fell on good soil represents those who hear and accept God's word and produce a harvest of 30, 60, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted. Oh, I love it so much. I love this so, so much. I love the parable of seeds. I love that he explains it. And I love that the disciples go to him and they're like, hey, bro, what do you mean? And he so gently explains it to them, which is kind of what we talked about last week too, right? Of how Jesus is so gentle with his followers. And I think that that's just so, oh, Jesus is so good. But I wanted to talk about this and like the question that I want us to ask ourselves is how do we make good soil for God to plant his word in our hearts so that we can then go plant it into other people's hearts? And I want us to look at the different soils, right? The footpath where Satan just snatch snatches it up right away, which we're not gonna talk as much about because I think most of us deal with the rocky soil or the thorny soil. So we're gonna get into that. And a reminder here that it says that God's word, that this is like this is Jesus speaking the parables. Okay, this is Jesus' words as the rocky soil is where they receive it with joy, but it doesn't last long because they have problems or they're persecuted for believing God's word. And then the seed that fell among the thorns, they hear it, but the message is just crowded out by everything else in life. I also want to point out before we get into all of this, that different areas of our life, different circumstances of our life are gonna have different types of soil. You're gonna have an you're gonna have an area in your life where you have rocky soil where you seem like your fruit is like, oh, my fruit is sprouting up. It's so beautiful, and then it dies really quickly. And you're like, hey, what? Then you got thorny soil in parts of our lives where worries and the desires and the to-dos of everyday life are overcrowding what God wants you to do. And then you're gonna have some areas in your life where you have really good, really fertile soil where your roots are deep and they're wide and you're producing amazing fruit. So I want you to keep that in mind. And you're also gonna have different seasons because the Bible also tells us that we produce fruit in our seasons. So don't forget that either. We all go through seasons of life. We can't all have fruitful seasons. Sometimes we need to have seasons that our roots are going deep and wide. Okay. I got really curious after I read this, knowing, like, okay, what would a farmer do if he had rocky soil? And what would he do if he had thorny soil? And basically, like to simplify it as much as possible, because that's not really this podcast, isn't about farming. Is he had rocky soil, he's gonna go through and he's gonna remove all of the rocks and then till that land. And then if he has thorny thorns in his soil, he's gonna go out and he's gonna rip it out at the root. Not gonna cut it down, rip it out at the root. So let's talk about what maybe our rocks are that we need to remove from our hearts so that we can have the good, fertile soil underneath. It can be trauma, unforgiveness, past wounds. And we've talked about unforgiveness on this podcast before. It's actually one of my favorite episodes. And I think that unforgiveness is such a barrier to our growth in God. And there may be times that, you know, for example, with this rocky soil, like if unforgiveness is one of your rocks, like you're gonna see the seed planted, the fruit come up real quick, and then die quickly. And you're gonna be like, whoa, hey, um, I thought I, I thought I healed that. I thought I forgave that. And the fact that it's dying so quickly is just gonna be your reminder that that's still an area that you need to work on in your life. Okay. And then we look at the thorny soil, and I think that so much of us are guilty of having a little bit of thorny soil in our life. And this is gonna come as distractions. It's what's competing for your attention with God, it's the desires of the world that are overcrowding what God wants for your life, right? And instead of cutting back on them, we need to get a little bit better about pulling them out at the root. And does this mean that you can't have other desires and things that you're doing throughout the day other than spending time with God? No, no, friend, not at all. It just means that we need to take a true, authentic, honest inventory of our life and see what is distracting us from our time with Jesus and what is distracting us in being with God. And part of why I wanted to talk about this today, too, is it's really natural for us to compare um to other people. Like we're very much a society that looks on, looks at the end result of something and not necessarily the building up of it. And I want to remind us all that things don't always appear to be what they are at a surface level. And we might be looking, you might be looking at your neighbor and you're seeing so much fruit in their life, and you're thinking, why is mine not like that? And I I want to encourage you, one, you don't know how long they've been growing their roots to get to where they are right now. You don't know how deep and far God had to take their roots in order for the fruit that they have now to show. But also, you don't know if their roots aren't going very far because they have that rocky soil. So theirs maybe sprouted up real fast and you're thinking, wow, God did that suddenly, and He's not doing it suddenly for me. And I just want to remind you, you don't know what's what's beneath the surface. Right now, I want to speak to the girl that has been planting seeds for so long and isn't seeing anything. You're in what, you know, us Christians call a waiting season, where you think you're you're waiting on God to produce the fruit that you feel that you have been planting, that you've been planting seeds in other people's lives, in your life, in your family's life, and you're just not seeing the fruit. And I want to remind you the deeper the root, the better the fruit. God could be taking your roots so deep and wide that whenever that does sprout, it's going to hit 30, 60, or even a hundredfold what you put down. He's growing you so deep so that you can't be pulled out by Satan and that you can't be pulled out by the world. Sometimes we see the fruit of others and we can start to grow envious, right? But that's just not, that's not where God wants us. That's not how he wants our heart postured. And he is such a god of the suddenly, but we don't know what led up to that suddenly. I want to remind you right now that nothing lasting is built quickly. Like a well-laid foundation, deep roots, all of those things take time. And if you're listening to this and you're thinking, I don't think I have rocky soil, I don't think I really have thorny soil, but I'm just not seeing the fruit of everything that I've been doing in obedience to God. Like, I just, oh, I so want to encourage you that it just takes some time and that God is building you something better than you can think, feel, or imagine. I want you to look at your obedience to God as something that every time you do it, it's watering that seed that you planted. Every single time that you obey God, and even if you don't see the results from it, He is doing something. He's always doing something. And I I want to encourage you that every time you obey, every time you obey, your roots are growing deeper and they're growing wider. And maybe you're not like you're in that waiting season, you're not seeing that fruit. But friend, it's coming. And actually, the shirt that I wore today, okay, random side story is the other day, a few weeks ago, I was standing in my closet and I was thinking, ma'am, I really wish I had a Christian shirt to wear on the podcast. Guys, I literally owned a Christian t-shirt shop and have like an entire section of my closet dedicated to those t-shirts. I don't know. I guess I just forgot that I did that, which is just hilarious. But this is one of them that's from it. And we're gonna, I'm gonna actually go ahead and pull this verse up too. Um, but this is so it says, I planted, they watered, and God gave growth. 1 Corinthians 3.6. So we're gonna also flip over to 1 Corinthians and we're gonna talk a little bit about this because I think it ties in so well with all of it. So 1 Corinthians 3.6, and this is Paul talking, says, I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. It's not important who does the planting or who does the watering. What's important is that God makes the seed grow. The one who plants and the one who waters work together with the same purpose, and both will be rewarded for their own hard work, for we are both God's workers and you are God's field, you are God's building. Okay, I love this so much because it just shows us like if you have, if you are somebody who has been planting seeds in the life of others, and maybe you're not seeing the fruit of it, you're thinking, Oh, I have prayed for them, I have discipled them, I have loved on them, and they're just not changing. I just want you to be so encouraged that one, their roots may be going real deep right now. God may be doing a work in them. You have no idea what's going on in their lives, but you are planting that seed and you are watering it with your prayers, and God is growing that that root real deep and real wide. Sometimes the most impactful thing that we will do as a Christian is plant the seed in someone else's life so that they can go and reproduce it 30, 60, or even a hundred times as much as planted. And these verses from First Corinthians just show the fact that while we can plant and we can water, God is the only one that can give that growth. We can pray for somebody, we can disciple somebody, but without their heart change and God, God doing that, without God reaching in and changing their hearts, nothing else can be done. And I think sometimes you're you're sowing, like you're in a sowing season where you are sowing into everybody and you feel like that fruit is not coming back even tenfold, and you're worried and you're sad, and you're praying and you're wondering, God, why? And I just want to encourage you so much that God may be dealing with the rocks in their soil. He may be dealing with the thorns in their soil right now. And don't stop. Do not stop. Be so persistent, be so persistent in the pursuit of others to change their life and bring them to Jesus. Be so persistent and chasing after the one and planting those seeds and knowing that anything lasting isn't going to be done in a day. And I totally believe that God is the God of the suddenly, but friend, you don't know what's beneath the surface of anybody's fruit. And we get in this comparison game of, oh, well, you know, I've been obeying God. She doesn't seem like she is, but look at all of the fruit in her life. You don't know how long that fruit's gonna last. It could be on rocky soil, you don't know how far that fruit is gonna go. You don't know. And we have to stop comparing and we have to, if you are in this waiting season of you've obeyed God over and over and over again, and you feel like God, where is the fruit? Babe, He is growing those roots so deep and so wide, and He is He is having them latch on to that good soil so that in their in its season it will produce 30, 60, and 100fold. Like God is going to do it. And I completely think God is the God of the Suddenly, but you don't know what might look like suddenly to you could be something that God has been building for so long. What might look like an instant miracle to you is probably something that God has been working on behind the scenes for so long, which is why our steps of obedience are so important even when we're not seeing the fruit. Our steps of obedience and that discipline is so important even when we're not when we're not seeing the fruit. And while there is so much grace in the Christian walk, God wants us to continue to be disciplined, He wants us to continue to walk towards Him, and He wants us to continue to plant, water, and grow all of the things around us. Like I even think of like I'm gonna be real honest. Oh, this one's gonna hurt. Okay. A year ago today, I was not reading my Bible. A year ago today, I was so mad at God. I would open my Bible, I would open my Bible at the kitchen table, and I would look at it and I would stare at the words, and I would just be like, I just felt so distant from God. I felt I almost felt nothing, which is such a sad place to be in. And it wasn't until like the end of June that God met me and He changed my heart again, again and again. He changed my heart. I finally, I finally decided to actually read the words on the page. I actually finally decided to apply the words to my life, and I met God again and said, God, I'm mad. I'm mad at you. I don't see fruit from my life. I don't know why I'm in this waiting season. I am so exhausted. I was just so real and raw and honest with God because, friend, I was in a waiting season. I felt like there is no fruit in my life. And what I learned in that moment at that kitchen table with God was that I wasn't in a waiting season waiting on God to do anything. God was waiting on me. God was waiting on my heart to be open. God was waiting on me to be okay with him watering my soil so that I could start to grow deep roots and wide roots. He was just waiting on me. So maybe you're in that spot too. Maybe you're not just waiting on fruit, but God's waiting on you to write yourself. He's waiting on you to start removing the rocks out of your soil. He's waiting on you to pull the thorns out by the root instead of just cut them down to look a little prettier. We're people that look at the surface, right? And so we just see sometimes a facade of what people are showing could be fake fruit. It could be fruit that's on rocky soil that's gonna sprout up and die real fast. Like we don't know. But I will say that a year ago, I was felt fruitless because God was just waiting on me to open my heart back up and he gave me steps to do that. And for me, that day was a suddenly day, but it was something that God had been waiting on for so long for me to just be honest with him and open my heart back up to him. But it was suddenly I was back in my Bible, suddenly I was hearing from God again, suddenly I was worshiping all day. Suddenly I was in prayer, but that suddenly took two years to get to, maybe more, if I'm being completely honest, took so long to get to that suddenly. So maybe you're in that spot. Maybe you are, maybe it's a friend, maybe it's somebody that you have planted seeds in seeds in and you feel like you are sowing and you are you're sowing and you're watering and nothing is happening. Or maybe it's you. Maybe right now you are wondering, God, my fruit keeps popping up and dying. God, I don't know what this is. God, I I seek you and I want a relationship with you, but I don't know what rocks to remove from my life. God, I want my roots to go deep and wide, but I'm scared. God, I don't know what the first step is. Maybe you're maybe you're there right now. And I encourage you, friend, and I'm praying for you, friend, that you would let God do a work in you today, that he would start pulling out the rocks that are blocking all of the good soil and all of the growth, and that you can do an inventory of your life and see what is trying to fight for your attention from God. Because we all have something that is. We all have whether it's social media, TV, whether it's even reading books, whether it's social life, sports, all of these things are not bad things, but they can be distractions. And if we make them an idol, they're gonna block any growth that we have in God. So while suddenly God changed my heart that day, it really wasn't. It was such a long waiting season of begging for that suddenly, of wanting it. And if you had told me, if you had told me a year ago today that now I would have a podcast talking about Jesus and that I would have written a book and had a publishing deal for a book about Jesus, if you would have told me that I built a albeit small but online community talking about Jesus, I would have been like, you've got the wrong Alex. That's not me. Because right now, in that spot where I was a year ago, I felt unworthy. I felt like God was mad at me. I felt like God didn't love me, that he didn't want me. I felt, I felt washed up and wasted. But God met me. He started pulling out the rocks and he gave me such good soil, which I am still working on now. And like I said earlier in this podcast episode, that there's gonna be spots in our life where there's rocky soil, thorny soil, and good soil. And so over here, you may be producing such beautiful and amazing fruit. Well, over here, God is still doing a work in you, and that's okay. That's part of it, and it's probably going to rotate in its seasons. And we're never gonna be perfect, we're never gonna just have all good soil, but the goal is to try, the goal is to take the word of God, plant it into our heart, and then reproduce it to share with others. Because remember, we don't we don't get to gatekeep Jesus, we don't get to gatekeep the goodness of God, it is for everybody. So if you're in a season right now where you think, oh God, I've been planting these seeds and nothing's happening, keep watering. If you're in a season right now where you can admit, okay, I've got some rocky soil and I need to work that out, give it over to God. And I also want to say that if you're like where I was a year ago, if you, if any of that relates to you, or if you're in that rocky soil and you're having trouble, don't God can change all of it, God can heal all of it. Absolutely. Do not ever be ashamed to go get counseling too, because God plus counseling, especially a Christ-centered counselor, if you can find a Christ-centered therapist, a Christ-centered counselor, and pair that with time with God, that is going to remove your rocks the most. That is going to help you so much. And I just want to remind you too that root like deep roots take time. To go far and wide, it takes time. Nothing, nothing lasting is built in a day. Nothing lasting is built instantaneously or quickly. And while God can change our lives suddenly, absolutely, God is a miracle worker. God can do all of it suddenly. He'll do it suddenly, and then he keeps doing it. He's gonna keep building you up, he's gonna keep giving you breadcrumbs. And while I think, like the like I said, the Christian walk, there's so much grace in the Christian walk. We have so much grace, but God does want us to be disciplined, He does want us to keep working towards building and growing. A little bit all over the place today, but I've been really excited to talk about this. I am really bummed because I recorded a full episode and then my phone wasn't recording the whole time. And I think this is just this kind of what I get for being a one-woman show, but it's totally okay and fine. And I hope that this still encouraged somebody today. I hope it still helps somebody today. I'm praying that you don't stop planting seeds. Um, I hope you don't hate the word root as much as I do at this moment because I feel like I said it too many times. But I love, I love the words of Jesus so much, but I love how much he talks about seeds and planting and fruit. And I see my two Bibles out right now. It's because I spend a lot of time flipping back and forth from one spot of the Bible to the other. And yesterday I was like, wait a second, you guys, I have two Bibles now. I can totally open it here and be here because what I love so much about the Bible is so much like you'll read in one spot and be like, oh my gosh, Jesus talked about that over here, and Paul's talking about it here. Oh, and they said this in the Old Testament. And oh, it's just so fun. So, anyways, thank you so much for being here today. Um, the summer episodes are probably gonna be a little bit shorter, but I'm really excited to start re-releasing the old episodes that did fall off the platform. So be looking out for that. And again, be so nice to me about it because I know they are quite rocky. But thank you so much for being here today. If you don't already, you should totally follow us on TikTok and Instagram at Babe We Need2Talk. We did just wrap up our James study, but I did put a highlight on Instagram so you can go back and do it, catch up yourself. Um, and then I'm thinking about doing a fun, like recap, James recap podcast episode. If you'd be interested in that, let me know. And yeah, go follow us over there at babe we need to talk on YouTube or at babe.we need to talk. And then you can always email me at heybabe we need to talk at gmail.com. But thank you so much for being here. And as I always say, do not take my word for it. Open gods had so much fun today, and I'll see you next time, babes. Bye.