My wife and I have just returned from a week in Michigan, visiting with our granddaughter, daughter, and son-in-law. Names like Detroit, Saginaw, Ann Arbor, and Flint always bring to mind industry and they do have that there. But get just a short distance outside cities like these and you’re in farm country.
Moving westward inland from the shores of Thunder Bay, a little indent along the west side of Lake Huron, the land is low, rolling hills and what isn’t woods is vast wide open fields, planted and right now, ready to be harvested. Barns and silos dot the landscape.
It’s just the scope of it all, crops coming up in uniformity, row after row as far as the eye can see, matured, fruited, ready to be taken, processed, shipped out, and end up in the cupboards and on the tables of people’s homes across this entire nation. Our farmers (husbandmen) working their farms, feed us. And I think “husbandman” is a very apt word to describe the farmer. Farming is a way of life, twenty-four/seven, every day of the year. They are indeed married to the land, they know the soil, the moons, seasons, and rains.
Theirs is a life of faith, planting a seed in the earth, waiting and watching to see new life, green and tender, break up through the soil just as an infant upon being born parts the womb, to grow, and mature. I’m quite sure farmers, and husbandmen, recognize the miraculousness of it all, and marvel at the continuous cycle of birth, death and rebirth. How can it be except by the hand of God? I’m equally as sure there are very few farmers who are not people of faith, of patience and hard work.
In their moments of quiet and contemplation, I believe that their thoughts go beyond the knowledge of the physical they have concerning the land, the equipment, the timing and their labor, to realize a physical reward… that their thoughts go beyond that and dwell on how can it be that a tiny seed can be buried beneath the surface of the soil, come to life, bear fruit and seed … out of one, many and beyond counting. Maybe they are reminded, you think? of God’s promise to Avram that from a single body… his body… would come descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. Patterns. Yahweh’s patterns are everywhere, that never change, and are proof of His unfailing faithfulness and that His eye is upon us. Believe… he might think. Labor, while it is day, for the night, comes when no man can work… he might remind himself. Trust, anticipate, and be patient. My Maker will bring the dead to life, make them fruitful and multiply.
“Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.
Behold, the farmer (husbandman) waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it,
until he receive the early and latter rain…” James 5:7 AKJV.
Father… thank You for our farmers, for those who have chosen to preserve and continue in the oldest trade known to man, dating to the Garden and Your purpose for him to work it, be fruitful and multiply.
Thank You that he serves as an example through whom You demonstrate what living in faith is, believing, trusting, and laboring in that spirit.
Please strengthen him that in the many obstacles and setbacks he is faced with, both manmade and from nature, he will continue to have his love for the land, that even when wearied from the labor he can still marvel, realize that it is a miracle what happens out in those fields under Your heavens, be encouraged, give You praise and continue in patience on the way to which You have called him.
May we who follow a different occupation take an example from them, ordering and conducting our lives believing in You, trusting and laboring patiently and expectantly, in the calling to which You have called each one of us.
Bless our labors, Father.
Be pleased.
Be glorified.
In Yeshua’s name, we pray,
Amen.
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