E. F. Hutton was the founder and financier of a brokerage company that grew into a financial giant. Today it is gone. It was destroyed in 1980 by corporate misconduct that involved literally thousands of acts of criminal behavior. Apparently too many people were listening to E.F. Hutton when they should have been listening to God! Because "When God talks, people are changed!" ~ that is, if we are listening.

Considering the fact that Scripture says that Jesus has the "Words of eternal life" (John 6:68) not listening to him is, for the Christian, an act of spiritual self sabotage! In today's parable when Jesus speaks of the seed sown on good and bad soil, the seed sown is the word preached. We must be careful not to practice a sort of "Spiritual Contraception" where we regularly put up barriers that either block the word (God's seed) from ever really "clicking" within us (conception) or that keeps that word from ever connecting to our real and everyday lives (implantation).

Sometimes a new Christian can be blindsided by a great trial and allow the experience to snatch the faith life right out of him (abortifacients). Listening and following God's word is what clearly identifies you as a child of God; that is, one "conceived" and kept alive by God's life-changing Word. Pray to live in such a way that anyone who knows God will never have to ask you: "Who's your Daddy"?