THE FARMER AND HIS CROPS:

I know that I am no different from anyone else from the standpoint of being tempted by the things I know I shouldn’t do. There are things that go against the teachings of God in the world and each of us is going to be tempted by them many, many times in our lives. How we react to them and how we conduct ourselves says a lot about our true nature and our understanding of right and wrong.

At some point in your life, you have been tempted to take some pieces of candy that you know you shouldn’t. Or, sometimes it’s a temptation to pick up and keep some money that doesn’t belong to you. Have you ever had a sales clerk give you back more change than they should have or didn’t charge you enough? Did you bring it to their attention or did you just walk away smiling that you just “got something for nothing?”

As we get older, the temptations get more intense and it’s harder to control your will not to give in. Part of the problem may be “peer-pressure.” Your so-called friends may tempt you with things or try to shame you into it by calling you names or not including you in their group anymore. I know this is especially hard as you grow up and are in school. Friendship is extremely important and so is being accepted by your peers. The pressure to “go-along” is very hard to resist. But, do the best you can. You know what is right and wrong.

Every kid, and I don’t care where they were raised or how they were raised, knows right from wrong. They know what is good and what is bad. If they didn’t know these things, they wouldn’t run away or lie about doing it when they did something wrong and were confronted about it. And, if they know right from wrong as a kid, they’re not going to forget it when they grow into adulthood. They may set their understanding aside or they may make excuses for what they do, based on their upbringing or environment or something else. They may even admit to knowing right from wrong, but just pick the wrong way, to get back at someone or to show they’re not afraid of getting in trouble, etc.

All of this aside, we, each one of us, is responsible for our own actions and the way we live our lives and the example we set for others. I know it isn’t easy and I know there are a lot of things we can use as excuses, but in the end, we really do control our own lives. This is one of the reasons you need to have a good understanding of God’s Word and the reassurance that: “For God is at work within you, helping you want to obey Him and then helping you do what He wants.” (Phillippians 2:13)

There is a parable in the Bible about sowing seeds. The seeds that were sown in good ground flourished and those sown in rocks or sand did not. As a farmer, I can relate to this parable very easily. Maybe that’s why God put me in this profession, eh? I know one thing, farmers of the world must be blessed because there are a number of stories about them in the Bible. Of course, farming was also the main profession of the majority of people at that time too.

While the work of farmers is hard and often thankless, they are in a position to apply the stories about them and to understand the teachings more than some other people. After all, it’s hard to understand something or someone if you don’t have similar experiences that you can share.

Speaking as a farmer, I know that there is a time to plant and a time to harvest. I know that in the springtime, the ground has to warm up to a certain temperature before it can begin to release the nutrients in the soil that are needed for the plant to grow. I know that because my farm’s ground is a silty-based clay loam, if I try to work it up too soon while it is still damp, it will be compacted due to the weight of the tractors and equipment driving on it. And that compacted soil will make it very difficult for the roots of the plants to get down deep to the moisture if it is a dry summer.

Also, if it is worked too early, the ground will not break up right and it will be lumpy and that, too will allow the ground to dry out and not support the plant when the adversity of summer comes. On the other hand, if I am careful and I wait until the ground is the right temperature, the soil has just the right amount of moisture so as not to compact or get lumpy, and then I pick the right day to plant, the right variety of seed, the correct depth to place the seed in the ground and get the seed covered with the correct amount of soil. It still isn’t done.

I still have to come back and cultivate and hoe the weeds that threaten to take over and destroy my crop. (to my daughters….you remember hoeing, don’t you?) Then I have to wait and hope that I get the right amounts of rain at the right times, that the crop doesn’t get diseases or bugs and then I get the right weather at the right time for a productive harvest.

Hopefully, if I’ve done my job correctly, I have a good healthy bountiful crop and then all I need be concerned with is what the markets will think it is worth to the buyers and/or consumers.

Life is a lot like this. Our parents care about us, their seed. They try to prepare things for us and us for our lives based on their life experiences and knowledge. They lay the groundwork that we begin to learn from. They set the examples for us to follow and learn from. We are the seed they have to nourish. They aren’t able to go out and pick the exact variety they may want. The variety they get is the one they have to work with. Sometimes, some seeds may be easy to care for and may thrive and flourish. Sometimes, the seed may be one problem after another and still amount to only an average or even below average plant.

How the parents till and prepare the soil (of life) for their seeds (children) is very important and not something to be taken lightly if you want to produce a good crop. After all, the preparation for the seed is the first major test the seed will have to go through if it is going to mature into a good crop. And if the parent, like the lazy farmer, decides to go fishing at the time he/she should be preparing the soil for the seed, that is another hurdle the seed and it’s crop are going to have to overcome.

I think you already know that each crop year is different. The weather doesn’t always cooperate, the conditions of the soil may change, disease may come, or pests (bugs or weeds) may affect it, the plants may not mature the way we would like….but, harvest time will come at some point.

At that harvest time, there will be good well-nourished plants that yield much and there will be some plants that yield less and some plants that had to struggle all season just to survive. But, they all help fill the bin and make a “total” crop.

Now, some farmers, like parents, will have lush high yielding crops and others will have less. When you drive down the road and look at the fields, you may have a tendency to think the farmer with the lush fields is a better, more knowledgeable or caring farmer than the one with the fields that are less. But, there may be other things that come into play.

It may well be that one farmer didn’t take the time and effort to prepare for the seed or maybe he/she was too busy with other things. However, he/she might have spent twice as much time preparing but the seed just didn’t respond for whatever reason. Or maybe it was a different type of soil. Maybe there was disease or pressure from bad weeds that took it’s toll on his/her crop.

Every farmer, even the real good ones, will make mistakes or misjudgments sometimes or have things happen beyond his/her control that will affect the crop. The good ones, however, will have it happen less often though.

What I’m trying to tell you is, that like farmers, parents (like me) usually try to do the best job they can in preparing their children, but they can’t always see into the future to know what the growing conditions will be. Sometimes they do their best and everything turns out just fine. Other times, they do their best and the crop comes up short or below our hopes and expectations. And sometimes, hopefully if the farmer is having trouble, he/she can get help from his/her neighbors and friends or from the “Master-Farmer”. A parent can do the same.

A field crop doesn’t have the ability to change its growing conditions, it takes what it gets. But a child, growing up can change the conditions they grow up under. It may not be easy (in fact it can be terrifically hard) but if things aren’t the way they should be, a person can go to God for help and guidance and then live the way they should. Not everyone is able to grow up in the best conditions or environment, but they all have the same right and ability to ask God for help. You know, sometimes when you want something and it takes a lot of effort to get it, you appreciate it more than if it came too easily.

One more thing, as long as I’m talking as a farmer and a parent. I know there are a lot of things you will be tempted by as you go through this life. But, I’ll tell you a quick story about quackgrass.

This is a weed that farmers (and gardeners) have to control if they’re going to have decent crops. In this illustration, however, I’m going to use it in reverse….for good. Now, quackgrass grows and flourishes under most all conditions and its hard to eradicate it. It may be showing in one place and then it sends rhizomes (underground arms or shoots) out a distance away and then another plant shows up from that. And another. And another, etc. until there are plants growing everywhere.

A farmer can cultivate some of it out or hoe some of it out, pull some of it out but if he doesn’t get every bit of it, pretty soon a little will pop out here or there….and then a little more….and a little more until it’s right back to where it was before. Quackgrass is a very invasive weed and can completely take over a field or garden and basically choke out the crop you are trying to grow and that’s not a good thing. The only real long time solution to getting rid of it is to use a special chemical which poisons the plant and kills it. The most common chemical for that is sold under the name of RoundUp.

The way it works is like this. Because quackgrass has these rhizomes, the only way to really eradicate it is to get the poison to its very roots so it is absorbed by the whole plant. Now you can apply the chemical to the leaves of the plant that are showing and it will be “translocated” to the roots because it is first absorbed by the leaves which then takes it to the roots. (it would be the same as spraying something on your skin, having it be absorbed by the blood vessels under the skin and then having it be carried by the blood to your heart)

The chemists that developed this product knew that by applying it in this fashion, it would work but they also knew that quackgrass takes in other nutrients from the soil to help it grow and survive and if they could mask the poison with some of these other beneficial nutrients, the quackgrass would more readily absorb the poison and then it would do a better and quicker job of killing the quackgrass. So, when you apply the chemical in this fashion, the plant is happy and takes it all the way to the roots and then it starts to kill the plant from the roots system up and it totally destroys the quackgrass plant and all its rhizomes. It is a very good and efficient product and has helped farmers and gardeners to fight this very bad weed.

In our lives, drugs and wrong doing (sin) work the same way. On the surface they seem fine or even really great. They’re fun and enjoyable and it seems (and other people agree) that there is no reason not to enjoy them. But, slowly and methodically they work their way down to our roots….our knowledge of right and wrong and in the end they will poison us and destroy our lives. Remember…a sweet taste to the mouth doesn’t always please the stomach.

What I’m trying to show is this. Think of all the people in this world that are trying to be honest and are working for goodness as the quackgrass. Little by little, they keep popping up all over the world. Evil tries to pull them out, hoe them out, etc. but the good just keeps coming back…and even multiplying. But if evil starts using drugs and other things (like peer pressure or social acceptance) to mask its appearance, it might be able to find an open door to the roots of the plant and destroy it after a time.

Now, the quackgrass is a very strong and resilient plant and it takes a lot to completely destroy it. Even if one plant in the whole field survives (and it always does), slowly and methodically it will reach out and multiply until at some point, it completely takes over. Farmers definitely don’t want quackgrass to take over the farm fields but in the world you and I live in, remember that evil is there also but if just one or two good people exist…they will get together and multiply and someday that goodness will take over the world. Just be sure you are part of the goodness and not a part of the poisoned plant.

(For reference: read about the example of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible)