Welcome to the Feminine Podcast. This is Nancy Wilson. Thanks so much for joining me today.

First, a shout out to all you women who are at the ACCS Conference in Pittsburgh who

told me you are listeners. I can't see you, but I know you're there, and thanks so much

for saying hi. Today I'm going to talk about the Parable of the Sower. I'm sure you know

it well, but just to recap, remember there are seed sown by the wayside. Some sown on

stony ground, some sown on thorny ground, and some sown on good soil. I'm going to discuss

the seed sown among the thorns in the thorny soil that fails to yield a crop, and the three

things that Jesus says choke that good seed. And since this is a short podcast, I'll just

take one of those three things each week. I realize recently when reading the parable

that each of these three things is a form of discontent. I assume you're all familiar

with the parable, but I am going to read how Jesus interprets it and explains it to the

disciples in Mark 4 18 through 20, starting with verse 8. Now these are the ones sown among

thorns. They're the ones who hear the word, and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness

of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes

unfruitful. But these are the ones sown on good ground. Those who hear the word accept

it and bear fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred. Notice first, these

seeds did hear the word, but they were sown among thorns, and so they were choked. And

the three things that Jesus said choked them and caused them to be unfruitful were number

one, the cares of this world, which I'm going to talk about today, deceitfulness of riches,

which I'll hit next week, and the desires for other things, which will be my third one.

So let's talk about the cares of this world. There are so many of them. Have you noticed?

We all have so many cares, and we never get to the end of them. The cares you have today

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