Drive Close to the Cutter

It’s silage time where I live. Many of our Alberta farmers are spending their days doing the monotonous work of shredding damp crops into cow munchies. Frankly, I don’t feel like writing about the particulars of silage, so you can read about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silage
What I will say is that “the cutter” has a rotating bar that pulls in the swathed crop and shreds it into bite sized pieces that are then blown into a close-by grain truck.

I spent the other day keeping my friend company while he taught me what it takes to run the cutter and what it takes to drive the grain truck along side it. Since my friend is one of the most experienced operators on the farm, he typically runs the cutter, keeping track of the moisture levels and communicating with the truck drivers. You see, the truck drivers have to pull along side the cutter quite close in order to make sure that the full load of silage makes it into the truck beds. If you’re not watching and looking to the cutter operator you could end up hitting the very expensive piece of machinery, or missing the blowing silage entirely. My friend noted that if they are paying attention and communicating with him, they’ll eventually get the feel of when they need to speed up or slow down or turn to get the fullest load possible. If they get distracted while driving the truck or are on their cell phones they tend to lose sync with the cutter operator and this leads to lighter loads which leads to less profit in the long run.

Often the machine will pick up a discarded bit of metal in the field which leads to the work being halted while the cutter operator and truck driver look through for the metal jamming up the works. That day, a piece as small as the head of a bolt held up the operation for nearly an hour as five guys worked to remedy the problem.

The night before I rode with my friend I’d been thinking about the Bible verse James 4:8 which says “Draw close to God and He will draw close to you”. I was impressed by how well the silage operation worked as a metaphor for this verse.

Kind of like this, except with prettier equipment

If God is the cutter and we are the truck drivers then we need to be looking to God and communicating with him so we can draw close to Him and receive the full load of blessings. The more often we practice this, the easier it will become. If we’re distracted or not communicating with him we become too far away to receive His blessings.

Likewise, it doesn’t always take much to gum up God’s work in your life. Sometimes it can be quickly fixed between you and God and sometimes you need to take it to the shop and have more brethren help you fix the problem so you can get back to reaping the blessings.

I think back to the verse and find that for me it is true. When I make a conscious effort to draw close to God I usually can feel Him draw close to me and that is when I am most satisfied and thankful for my blessings. When I get caught up in the things of the world I get out of sync with what God is trying to do in my life and I become frustrated easily.

Just a small silage experience that I thought was neat.

A Field of Glory

She was a rolling meadow small, skirts of grasses, but weeds as tall
Her wild flowers, untamed and fair led her to ignore the patches bare
Where not a green thing grew at all
And the sun, why she basked in its bliss, unaware
She was burning from its hot, dry kiss.

Then, one ragged day He came,
Plan in place He began to toil
His work, it ripped through and overturned her soil
Crushed her wild flowers down,
Uprooted the grasses of her gown
She cried in pain, "Just leave me be,
Can't you see you're hurting me?"

He did not stop but worked harder still,
He pulled the weeds that had grown so tall
All burrows were filled, so as not to fall
He broke the ground so dry and cracked
He was not discouraged by what she lacked

Horrified she looked around and all she saw was broken ground
Dusty field of brown and black, spread with muck on top of that
But now He whispered as He sowed
A promise of new life with every throw

"Shhh, small one, do not weep
My plans for you may seem but meek
But trust me and you won't be sorry,
I'll make you into a field of glory"

She ceased to cry and when she did
Tears from Heaven flowed instead
Rain immersed her ground and washed her clean
New growth, new life, she was redeemed

She loved Him now and bore His work
A meadow small she could not be
"I'll be His field of glory!"
She spoke determinedly

And where she had been stripped to dirt and dust
She grew straight and tall, leaving Him her trust
So now she wears an emerald gown
Her hair bright gold and eyes of sky
She dances in joy as the wind blows by

Because He's making her a field of glory
Fulfilling the promise that she won't be sorry
A song of courage and truth she hums
She knows she'll be with Him when the harvest comes.

~L.L.M.

The Unknown Future

Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom

Luke 12:32

It would be so nice if the moment we became Christians we would be able to just trust God completely and be content with our lot in life. Unfortunately, if you’re anything like me, you may find that trusting God is like sunshine on a cloudy day. It feels so good when the sun is shining down on you with its bright, warm rays, but then a group of clouds pass over and suddenly its shadowy and cool and it goes back and forth like that between sun and cloud all. day. long. 

The peace that comes when you give your troubles to the Lord is such a comfort - but for me it always seems fleeting. Its not long before my worries or doubts cloud over again and I’m left wondering if I ever really trusted God with the issue in the first place. 

I’m particularly guilty of playing the “alternate universe” game. Its where your mind leads you to consider how your life may have looked if you had taken a different path that was offered to you in your past. I’m quite happy with where my life has taken me, so the little trips down reminiscence road are really a complete waste of time. What’s worse than this useless indulgence in the past however, is when I take the same game into the future which I have a feeling is a bit of an insult to God. After all, there is a difference between conscientious planning and responsibility in regards to the future and apprehensive, anxious preparations for a future that is unlikely to make you nearly as squirrelly as your pre-planning has made you.

What I’m getting at is that when I let my mind run amok with anxieties about what “could” happen or what “might” not happen - when I daydream about this possibility or that potential problem I’m not only being disrespectful to the God who has it all figured out for me, I’m being an irrational, stressed out moron. 

First, worrying is not a productive move. You can’t fix something that isn’t broken, you can’t plan a route when you don’t know your destination. My favourite saying about worry is that it’s like a rocking chair - it gives you something to do but it doesn’t get you anywhere. Trusting in God on the other hand. . .well. . .I guess it may not always feel productive but it allows you use your brain for more productive things while building your faith and its what we have been commanded to do. Personally, looking back at how things have unfolded in my life I can get a glimpse of God’s plan and it is stunning and beautiful thus far - why shouldn’t I trust Him?

Second, if I’m worrying about the future because I’m concerned about my happiness (which is usually why I’m worrying about the future) then I’m forgetting the point of my life in Jesus Christ. Circumstances never last and are always changing. If you are basing your happiness and your faith for that matter, on your life circumstances you will forever be in a cycle of searching, finding, doubting and disillusionment. Your happiness and contentment will be tied to what’s going on in your life and lets face it, what’s going on in your life will not always be rainbows, bunnies and butterflies. 

We need to remember that the only certain and solid thing in this life is God. Our happiness and contentment in this crazy world should to be tied to Him and Him alone. Nothing else can withstand the anti-rainbows, anti-bunnies and flies. There is no peace and lasting happiness apart from God. 

I “know” all this but sometimes its not enough. I’m the type of person that will probably always need to reconsecrate my future to the Lord. And since trust becomes stronger the better you know someone I need to continue to get to know the Lord by reading the Bible and hanging onto his words whenever I start to become consumed with worry. The other practice that can soothe this weakness is prayer. I really think that its not enough to just try to ignore a worry - you have to make the conscious decision to give it over the Lord and talk through it with Him. 

When you read this I would consider it a blessing if you would pray for me, that I might be able to hand over my worries and concerns to the Father and use my brain for more productive pursuits. If there’s anything you’ve found helpful when you get caught up in your worries I’d like to hear that too. 

"And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you.”

Luke 12: 25-31