Good Soil Needs Little work?

It took me twenty two years of ministry to clue into a fundamental flaw of my ministry.

I was commenting to my wife one day, "Why is it that when somebody finally feels some sort of "conviction" they are "Not doing/growing enough" in their spiritual life (usually that comes on after a preacher like me unloaded that common message on them), the solution seems to be to ask a pastor or elder to come lead them in a Bible study.
But after four or five weeks it typically runs its course.
They need encouragement- I get that. But let's face it, they are often being lazy by asking us to do 4 or 5 hours of prepration for them, rather than digging themselves. What i've noticed is many don't do much for themselves in the process. Why?

For example, They often are not reading the Bible themselves before or after the Study we have taken hours of our life to "plunk before them". But I thought if I did enough, taught enough........."

So I shifted to handing them something to study and saying when you read these scriptures call me, I want to hear what YOU discovered. Ate you really ready to start this journey?

Jesus rarely just plunked down and answered questions for people. Rather he asked them questions to get them thinking and digging and answerin. If you lacked the spiritual hunger to seek the truth, you missed out.

My sister-in-law made a very powerful statement, with great insight, that changed my life in in Feb 2010. We were getting ready for a huge project in Africa and I was, as usual, working like a dog to get things moving and happening. She said,
"Andy, You can't work hard enough to compensate for somebody else's inertia or lack of interest."

I have to admit that I've lived most of my life, most of my ministry, under the mistaken impression that if I worked harder, I could compensate for.........

If they were not too interested, I could work hard to given them more, show them more, expose them to more. Then they will see the beauty and be change. I believed, in practice, I could compensate for their inertia or lack of interest. There is a fundamental flaw in that thinking I see now.

Look at these verses and understand the "soil", in the preceding passages, is defined as as the hearts of people hearing the gospel. Some were good soil, some were bad soil. But look at what Jesus said about the work required........

Mark 4:26-29 LB "Here is another story illustrating what the kingdom of God is like: 'A farmer sowed his field, and went away, and as the days went by, the seeds grew and grew without his help. For the soil made the seeds grow. First of leaf-blade pushed through, and later the wheat-heads formed and finally the grain ripened, and then the farmer came at once with a sickle and harvested it."

God makes seed grow said Paul. But good soil is the medium in which God makes it grow it seems. After the seed is sown, we have little work to do, it seems, other than just living the "one another"-ing of the NT (do a Phrase search on that)
Am I off Base?
I'm not saying working hard and giving opportunities is a bad thing. But I see that how I often responded to them had a fundamental flaw.

Andy, you can't work hard enough to compensate for someone else's inertia or lack of interest."

Wish I had heard that 25 years ago.