day 936: The Course To Pursue

"My child, listen and be wise; keep your heart on the right course."

 I heard this story on Sunday and I will do my best to repeat it as it was shared.

There was a farmer who raised sheep.  He had a neighbor who had recently acquired dogs.  A few weeks after the dogs joined the neighborhood, the farmer found his neighbor's dogs attacking and killing one of the farmer's sheep.  The farmer immediately approached his neighbor about the incident and asked that his neighbor curb his dogs.  The neighbor said he would try, but shortly thereafter the dogs attacked another sheep.  This time the farmer felt like he needed to take the situation in his own hands and began to think through alternatives.  The first thing he thought of was to buy a gun and the next time the dogs came into his farm he would shoot the dogs and be done with the problem.  But on further thought he knew that by shooting the dogs he would only set up a larger confrontation with the neighbor that could escalate.  So, abandoning that idea he considered suing his neighbor.  That too would cause greater consternation and also with the cost of a lawyer and a deep seated belief he had that suing others was not right, he finally looked into what it would cost to build a fence between the properties.  After surveying and realizing that the cost of fencing his entire property so that the dogs couldn't get in, that he couldn't go that route either.  So, standing outside at night and considering if he had any other alternatives, he talked to God.  The farmer said, 'God, I've thought of all I can do, what do you think I should do?"  It was then and there that a new idea came to the farmer and he thanked God for speaking to him with a thought he never would have had on his own.  The next morning the farmer took two of us his small lambs who had been recently been born and walked over to his neighbor's house.  He approached his neighbor and said, "I thought that your two daughters should have their own lambs to love and raise so I wanted to bring these little guys over as a present for them."  The neighbor was very appreciative and his girls were ecstatic with joy.  As the farmer was walking back to his own property he said over his shoulder to his neighbor, "Oh, and you probably want to be sure and chain up your dogs as we know they aren't very nice to sheep."  The farmer never saw the dogs on his property again.

God tells us what course to take if we can get our hearts right with Him and listen to what He has to say to us.  He will open up new ideas and ways of thinking for us on how to deal with tough co-workers, neighbors, and everyone else in our lives.  We just need to ask and trust His course.

Reference:  Proverbs 23:19 (New Living Translation)

day 851: Farmer Lessons

"Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God"

It was September 22, 1985, in Champaign, Illinois when the first benefit concert called Farm Aid happened. Being raised in Indiana and a Purdue graduate, I remember it well as our own state son, John Cougar Mellencamp was one of the founders of the movement. In 1985 the American Farmer was in real trouble with farms being foreclosed at a staggering rate and little profit to be made. Purdue being such a strong agriculture school gave me friends who came from family farms and returned home to them after graduation. Farming was, and is, hard work. Plants and animals don't know days off like weekends, Sundays or holidays. Every day is a farming day and there is much to be learned. The resilience of a Farmer can best be seen in the lesson that a farmer can never look behind them as they till or plow a line for once they do the line in front of them will never be straight again. It's a metaphor that being from a farming state you learn young and it sticks with you. Fortunately, nearly 30 years later the American Farmer is thriving. Globalization has caught up with farming and there is now an export market for our home-raised food that has the price of land rising exponentially and farmers once again being lifted up on the pedestal of economic standards that they once had and again deserve. The perseverance of the American Farmer; a lesson to be learned by all.

Jesus was a man of, and an observer of the people. He knew the hard work of the farmer and He taught many of His parables out of the lessons and knowledge of the land and farming. Jesus told the want-to-be follower that if this person looked back once he put his hand on the plow then the man would not be fit for the Kingdom of God. To truly believe there is no looking back to evaluate or try and draw a line from our past to our future. God tells us to give up what is behind us and only fix our eyes on His path in front of us. That is the field that is ours to plow, maintain and someday harvest. The lesson of the farmer challenges us today to ask ourselves how much time are we spending looking over our shoulder, or are do we have our eyes fixed and forward as He tells us to do?

Reference: Luke 9:62 (New Living Testament)

day 489: A Farmer's Lesson

The other day I heard someone use the old adage, "we have to make hay while the sun is shining". We probably all have used that line at some point in our lives, regardless if we were ever farmers or not. It's a good lesson and one that can make us work a little harder and be more productive in the times when we may want to slack off. However, there is another lesson that the farmer probably knows better than anyone and that is that regardless of the conditions, work must get done everyday if the crops are going to grow and yield the produce at harvest time. Sure, there are sunny days but there are also rainy days, cold days, oppressively hot days and days that are so windy, foggy and dreary that all you want to do is roll back over into bed and wait for the weather to clear. If a farmer only waited for the best conditions then not much would get done. We do this at work too; we look for other conditions than the weather to direct our attention and efforts. We wait for the mood of the boss to be right, we look for the day of no meetings before we start on the project, we put off making the return phone call until the afternoon is clear to talk. Basically, we wait until the weather is clear. The lesson is that the conditions are never quite perfect and that we have to put our shoulders down and "weather the storm" if we want to get things done. In Ecclesiastes Solomon opines the same; "If you wait for the perfect conditions, you will never get anything done." Today, you may have some piece of work that you really need to get done but you have been in waiting mode for just the right conditions before you start, complete, present or send it in. Those perfect conditions might show up, but more than likely there will be something else that gets in the way that disrupts perfection. Consider today as the best conditions you will have and like the farmer, just get out in the field and get it done.

Reference: Ecclesiastes 11:4 (New Living Testament)