This was probably one of my biggest days off of the summer! With chores to a minimum and rains yesterday to force me to slow down this was a different day indeed! Our church banded together with several other area churches and had an outdoor service at a local town that was having a summer carnival. The service was two hours earlier than our normal time but the small amount of chores got done in good order and we had plenty of time to get there early this morning. After the service we walked over to one of the local churches that was in on the service and had us a breakfast, and of course coffee for me! Did that last year too and funny how much I enjoy that! A good day, one of the best! Then when that was over with we hung around with friends and waited for the parade to start. A good parade, a big one for such a small town. Of course the little kids sure enjoy the candy, I just enjoy the fellowship, very much! Stuck around for the kids to take in a few rides, of course I stayed away from that. Either I’m getting older, or just wiser! Bought a burger and about that time in early afternoon decided to head on home after already spending six hours in town. A good day, a wonderful day!
Got home and did a pasture check that I happened to skip this morning and then figured I’d better till the garden! Why? Because the weeds were as high as the tiller! Funny how things can get away on a guy. But the weed hammering is done and in a few days I’ll hit it again and it should look allot more presentable after that hit! Now to just get a good rest tonight and hit the farm hard tomorrow. Cultivate corn in the morning when things are a bit damp yet and rake and bale hay afternoon into evening. The next day do it all over again. Things get done no matter how big the job seems at the time. So this week and the next will be full bore work! But good work and I praise the Lord for it!
So much happening, so much. And I’m not talking farming either. I’m talking faith matters. I can’t turn around and there’s something happening, something stretching me more and more. From Honduras to local. From town to farm. And from all over on the internet. The comments here and the e-mails are really special to me and I really want folks to know that. I never was a very good commenter, but the comments and e-mails really touch me and keep me going. I try and keep up with them but sometimes things slip through when I’m busy and I apologize for that.
There’s a quote, a quote from about my favorite movie of all time, “Faith Like Potatoes”, and also the book of the same name. “When God’s creation is broke, He’s more than able to fix it!” Over the last couple of months I’m starting to realize that this quote is becoming a theme for me. Just think about the simplicity of that quote and the meaning behind it! A simple sentence like that is a faith builder if ever there was one! And I know that there’s not a person alive that doesn’t need some fixing. If I was an automobile I think my tires would be bald, the engine eating oil like nuts, the tranny ready to go out, but I keep on going down that narrow road, even in that condition, trusting the Creator to keep things together enough to be used for His glory.And He will! Today I know that God does use the foolish to confound the wise, believe me! Cause He even has uses for some one like me. In all reality that’s hard to believe and it makes no sense at all, none.
He can take anyone, yes, anyone and use that person for His glory. Don’t matter if they’re rich or poor, good looking or someone like me who really ain’t. Someone who talks rough or someone who is an expert speaker, don’t matter one bit to God. He can take a farmer, a house wife, someone who works in any kind of job or someone who can’t work at all because of some injury, or age, or condition, it don’t matter to God. He can use any one for His glory. The more impossible, the better! The more unlikely, the best! In my early walk as being a Christian, (which wasn’t all that long ago), I dug into everything I could get my hands on as far as preaching, teaching and the sorts. I followed many big named preachers and ministries and I don’t regret it because I did learn allot. But something happened over the course of time, something I have a hard time explaining. The more I learned the more I headed for the simple. The more I headed for the real people. The big churches are OK, I ain’t knocking them, because who am I to do so. The big ministries that bring in ten or hundreds of thousands of people are OK, but I started getting a disconnect from them. Again, not knocking them, but just sharing here.
I started seeing the real world, or at least the world that I was being led to. The regular folks. The small churches. The ministry where a person is out with the young, the old and every one in between! Away from the big churches, away from the perfect praise teams, away from the money. Away from the business of it. Just with the people, the regular folks. Not looking for a job, just looking to spread the Good News with a simple heart! And over these past few months since deciding this, a decision that even had me end some blogs and just take the chance and have this one, things are at a roar in the faith department! From holding Hispanic services locally, to the Honduras trip with members of our family where the Gospel was spread. To being trusted to do Sunday church services in our church to who knows where and what else will come up.
When a person tells God that he or she will follow Him and do His will, believe me, He will respond and open doors in every direction in ways a person could not even imagine shortly before. This Sunday evening, this evening of rest before the storm of work tomorrow, I am amazed at how God can take a worthless life as mine and turn it around and challenge me to go ahead, to do His will, to follow Him and trust Him doing things which I never thought were possible for someone like me. I’m a farmer. There’s a farm to run, there’s a family to take care of. But when you make a covenant with God, to do His will, watch out! The farm will blossom, the work will get done, probably better than before, and He will open doors, He will make a way for a person to do His will and work in ways a person could have never imagined without thinking they were going half nuts just a little while before hand!
When God’s creation is broke, and I was sure broke, He can take a life and turn it around so that to the world they can’t even believe what they are seeing. He’s more than able, yup much more than able, to fix it!