Psalm 24:1-2 The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters. (ESV)
(Isaiah 48:13) My own hand laid the foundations of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I summon them, they all stand up together. (ESV)
Before I get into the next events, it is necessary to understand that at times (and most would agree) bad things happen for reasons that we may not understand and sometimes those events involve people in our lives. It is not for us to question (though we do), it is not for us to become angry (though I did), and it is not for us to blame others whom may be used of God.
(For a better understanding on this topic visit J.D.’s blog, “voice of vision” look under the title, “Sandpaper people”. You will be blessed)!
This particular evening there was a Wednesday night bible study going on and it was taking place at our house this week. It fact this was the first time it had taking place at our home. Perhaps because everyone had to walk the last quarter mile to get to the house. There was just no getting through what we loving referred to as, “Frog City”. In fact there were not many times anyone could drive through that wet area.
As the sun was setting and everyone still eating, (which church people do well) I saw a figure come from the wood-line heading for the house. This was always an intense moment waiting to see who was coming from the woods toward the house. We had very few visitors on any other day than this; all other visitors were treated with caution and with a great lack of trust. Seeing someone walk out from the tree-line as the sun was setting could never be a good thing.
The wife of the man who I saw nearly every morning for breakfast had walked up to the front door, opened it and was very much welcomed. Much to everybody’s surprise she was in full blown tears. She told how her husband mistreated her in a physical manor and that he had done the same to her several times in the past. This particular day Fred was here as well, in fact we had borrowed this same man’s car so we could double date that past weekend.
What I saw happen next I never thought I would see. The suggestion was made that this woman’s children needed to be taken out of their house just to be safe. (Carol and Warren just to give them addressable name), had four children, the oldest of the girls was the person I had taken out on a date that past weekend. I thought sure those people that I had come to respect would step up and help. Not one did. Fred and I drove to the church where the Pastor was still, we told him what had happened and he turned us down as well. (There was a particular reason he could not come help but that is not my story to tell).
There weren’t many times I was happy to see my older brother but this was indeed one of those times I was glad he was around. I was born ten months later than Fred which always caused a lot of tension between us. We fought and argued more often in the month of October than most siblings do all year. Every October for twenty eight days he and I were the same age.
However, this night all our problems were going to be set aside for a ride and an event that I would never forget and would be the start of a life altering change for both my family and myself.
We drove back to the house to tell everyone what the Pastor had said in hopes that some of them would have changed their minds. The fact that none had did in no way deter what we had planned. Fred and I got back in Warren’s car and drove over to his house. When we got there we found the front door was unlocked, so in we went. I had been there many times and knew right where to go. Their house was designed in a way that left the center part of the house open with a loft on either side of the house. As well, the house was an unfinished building, so they had sheets hanging as a wall partition in the room where Warren was now asleep. Fred and I climbed the makeshift latter on either side, woke up the kids and carried them out the door to the car and went back in for the rest.
I guess Warren never woke up, which was fortunate for us, as he was a grizzly of a man. I’m not sure a well placed two-by-four would have had much effect on a man of his stature.
We drove the four children back to our house and back to the waiting arms of their mother. What we had done was pretty stupid; we never considered the consequences that such an act would bring about. We all settled in for the night but I don’t remember getting much sleep at all. The adrenalin that was pumping through me was making it difficult to sleep, or perhaps it was the fact that I had no idea what the morning would bring after doing something that quite possibly could have ended up very different than it had.
This situation was proving to be far from over, the next morning what should have happened was we should have returned Warrens car back to him. But as foolish as teens can be, we kept the car. (I’m not sure where we went), but Mom and we four kids got into the car and were gone for several hours. When we got back Warren had been there looking for his car. In the state of mind he was in he paid no attention to his family being there in the house, in his anger he threw a kerosene lantern across the cabin, walked out the door with a hand full of sugar and dumped it in the gas tank of the farm truck, then picked up the axe we were using to split firewood with and smashed the windshield of the truck as well.
That day would prove to be the last time I would ever see our cabin and the place I had grown to love. I never imagined I would live anywhere but on that farm. I had even picked out the place where I would one day build my own cabin.
When we saw what had taken place while we were gone, mom decided we had to get out of there. This time we packed everyone up in the car and we drove to town and stopped at one of the families that were at the house the night before. They said Carol and her children could stay there with them, while we drove to the city to meet Dad.
Still, we had to return the car… Continued
I believe I was talking about “potatoes” when last I left off. Perhaps you are aware or maybe not, but potatoes are a wonderful blessing from God. I know what you’re thinking. Potatoes? Have you ever left a bag of potatoes in the refrigerator crisper department too long and found that when you remembered that they were there they had a strange looking growth all over them? Kind of like tentacles or something? Did you know that you can cut a potato into two or three pieces and dig a hole in the ground and after a few weeks they will begin to grow the plant in which potatoes come from? As well, after a while you will begin to see little purple flowers blossom? Then in the fall you can dig up that plant and you will find a rather large bunch of potatoes have grown from that piece you planted back in the spring of the year.
Ok, that doesn’t work in Florida (I’ve tried it). We have a very small ant called the, “Sugar Ant” that will find the piece of potato and he and all his little buddies will devour it! But I have seen this first hand back on the farm.
But back to my point. The plant when it began to grow got its nourishment from that small piece of potato and the potatoes that grew later got there nourishment from the plant.
I’m getting to the real point, I promise. So here it is. At no time during the life of this vegetable did or could it have ever grown on its own. Neither the plant nor the potatoes were able to come to a completion without being reliant on another source.
Where am I going with all this horticultural babble? (Ephesians 3:17-19) …so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
(Rooted, Grounded… Potatoes)? (wink wink)
People, we can no sooner do this by any means of our own than the potato can grow and produce on its own! Earlier in this same chapter the Apostle Paul says, (3:2-3a) “assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation“.
Paul was speaking to the Ephesians concerning the Gentiles. He said in (3:6) This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
Those who have received salvation through Christ, who have been rooted and grounded in love, strengthened to comprehend, filled with the fullness of God, must come to the realization that there was/is no human possibility that we could do these things or come to know these things with out being reliant on a source other than ourselves.
This is not a difficult concept to understand, (1Peter 2:9) But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Like the potato, we can do nothing to get to our conclusion. We must stop trying to do this ourselves. We have been seeded from an imperishable source. All we need to do is obey God's Word and allow God to make us grow. That’s it. We can not do anything to cause ourselves to blossom. However by making poor choices we can make the growing experience more difficult on ourselves. Lord help me to become more reliant on you. In the name of Jesus. Continued...
Hebrews 2:10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through suffering.
People who have known pain are able to reach out to others who hurt. That word, “pain” is not exclusive to physical pain. Those who have had emotional pain, family pain, the pain of loss, these are all viable types of pain. But this also includes the suffering from temptation and testing, leading to obedience.
If you have suffered and have pushed through it, by the grace of God, The Lord tend to use that healing experience and even the low points of those times to show you how you can reach out to others that are going through similar things. Understand that someone who hasn’t gone through great suffering will have a hard time comforting those who are currently experiencing pain.
2 Corinthians 1:4 who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God
Let us not neglect that pain or suffering have benefits as well. 1Peter 2:21 (Christ is our example) For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving an example for you to follow in His steps.
Romans 5:8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. (ESV) As harsh as some may perceive this passage to be, it is as it is. If you want to learn to be obedient to God you need to be prepared to go through some suffering.
As time began to pass the Lord Jesus Christ became more prevalent in my life. He began to change the way I viewed the world and how important it was to interact with the world but not to be part of it. Such things as praying for the salvation of those in the world, passing out Bible Tracks and how important it was to be obedient to my parents. (Quite a task in it self)!
After dad left home there were some responsibilities that were passed to my older brother and I. Mom had to leave her job to take care of the house and the younger kids, as well as to help guide the older of us. Beside the regular chores that had to be continued daily, Fred (my older brother) and I began to farm the White Cedar trees and cut them into fence post and deliver them to a cedar mill five miles away. We had an old Dodge one ton work truck with a wooden truck bed which we used to haul the cedar to the mill. We also found out we could work well together when we needed to. He would cut down the thirty to forty foot trees and cut the limb off, cut them into twelve, ten, and eight foot logs and I would carry them to the truck still out in the field and load them up. This lasted only a few months before the little mill stopped taking anymore cedar. I remember the day the owner told us he wasn’t taking anymore posts. Looking into the eyes of those then fifteen and sixteen year old boys. He let us continue to bring a few more loads down. He told us we always bought him the best cedar he had to work with. I still remember the feeling I would get when he would hand us our money for each load. In 1979, $35.00 was a lot for two teens. We always brought the money back to mom and she always did her best with it.
Like most teens, Fred was no exception. After we could no longer haul cedar there wasn’t much to be seen of Fred, he had found himself a girl friend. She lived several counties away and Fred would stay there for several days at a time. There was one particular afternoon Fred and I had a pretty heated argument, he was getting ready to leave again and he wanted to take with him the shotgun we were using to hunt larger game with. After that argument Fred came home less and less. Yes, it was his gun after all, but we had a much greater need for it at that time. Did the ends justify the means? Probably not. But then, what fifteen year old who was now the oldest male in the house would'nt make mistakes?
So again there was my routine. I would get up early, make bread for the day, haul water from the well, chop wood for the cook stove, ride my bike the five miles to town when needed, hunt in the early evening so there would be meat for dinner, and read my bible by lantern before bed.
Toward the end of our time on the farm we were eating mostly oatmeal for breakfast and onions and potatoes for dinner. Those were things we bought by the fifty pound bags.
I remember the local Potato farmer letting us go behind the big mechanical pickers and bag up any potatoes that we could find after the picker went through. Praise God we always had potatoes! Continued…
