A parable is a story told alongside a truth intended to teach. They are earthly stories with heavenly meanings or spiritual truths. Why did Jesus change from telling the truth plainly to people to telling them through parables?
A parable reveals the truth to one seeking God and conceals
it from those with hardened hearts, so as not to harden their hearts any further. Those who are open and sensitive to spiritual truth will be given more understanding, but those who are not, even the little understanding they have will be taken away. To them, it would just be a story.
This was also done to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah. A hardened heart leads to spiritual blindness and deafness. If
our heart is closed off, we will not receive what God might be saying to us. But what’s so gracious about God is that he came for the lost and the found. That even if our hearts are closed and we cannot see or hear him, the moment our hearts turn towards him, he will heal us. Just as he healed the physically blind and deaf, he also came to heal the spiritually blind and deaf. The God we serve leaves the ninety-nine for the one.
We all have a story, our own lives are a story, and God is the storyteller. And God has stored up many secret truths that reveal more of himself in our own lives, just like the parables. And the more we seek him, the more we see his footsteps and revealed presence in our own lives.
What is the condition of your heart toward God today?
Would you say
your eyes and ears are open to see and hear him?
Or do you need to turn to him first, for healing?
Have you seen God's secrets in your own story?
