The Lord says, “the thorns...choke the word” (Matthew 13:22). What some of these thorns are He here describes. Cares, covetousness and corrupt desires exert a detrimental effect upon our hearts. The Lord says to us, “Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns” (Jeremiah 4:3). God is saying it is pointless to bring the word there. Through the power of these thorns the word’s good effects are destroyed. Reading and hearing God’s word become merely an exercise that brings little lasting benefits. It is a fearful thing, therefore, we must daily seek God’s grace, that He would enable us to tear up the thorns in our hearts and to cry that His word would run freely and unhindered within us. The danger is that the thorns become so many that we do not even trouble ourselves about them anymore. The field of thorns can become so thick that we don’t even care about “the word” anymore.