It is well known that planting the same crop season after season will start to strip a field of any usable nutrients, making each successive crop less fruitful than the last. Before modern methods of chemical fertilizers had been invented, farmers had relied on a practice called crop rotation. They would plant crops on a portion of their fields and they would allow another portion of their fields to lie fallow, or for the soil to simply rest without any tilling or planting. Fallow fields had the time to naturally regenerate the necessary nutrients for future crops. It might seem a waste to leave part of the fields unplanted, but if the fields were rotated properly, a farm could be much more productive in the long term by giving up a part of its short term gains. In the parable of the sower, Jesus compares faith in His word to a seed, and our hearts as the soil into which it is planted. If there are parts of the soil in our hearts in which the seeds of faith are struggling to take root or be fruitful, then maybe we need to exercise patience and trust in the Lord and allow our heart to lie fallow for a time. Struggling with our faith or our testimonies or our obedience to the commandments does not mean we are irredeemably lost. Maybe we have become imbalanced and tried to plant more seeds of faith than our hearts could support, or maybe we put too much emphasis on our faithfulness to certain commandments while neglecting others that have their place in maintaining the delicate balance of moisture, pH, and nutrients in our hearts that the seeds of faith need to be fruitful. It will not be the end of the world if we have to take a break and let our hearts lie fallow until we have recharged and replenished our spiritual strength that has been stripped from us. It is much better for us to come back with crops that bring forth a hundredfold after the soul has rested for a season, then to just continue to try and force more and more crops out of an ever increasingly exhausted patch of soil. If we find that we are not as active or faithful or righteous or perfect as we wish we could be, then let us put our trust in the Lord and look to Him for guidance and wait to plant more seeds of faith until He gives us the signal that it is finally ready. Fallow fields and fallow hearts are an important part of the growing process and I hope that we will all have patience with ourselves when it is time once more to enter a fallow period. We will notice an increase in our faith after our trial has ended.
