To a farmer, the weatherman, or woman, or forecaster, etc. is a very important person. In fact, receiving the weather forecast is an everyday occurance and a necessary tool. That’s because there are a lot of things on the farm that are influenced by the weather.

Spring planting is one of the things. Each crop – navy beans, corn, soybeans, oats, wheat, barley, sugar beets, etc. has different varieties of seed and each of these varieties has different growing characteristics and different lengths of maturity. For an example, I’ll use white navy beans. I’m only going to use three of the varieties for now but you’ll get the idea.

The Mayflower variety is a more upright and hearty type but it is a little longer maturing and needs to be planted earlier in the growing season. The Schooner is a less upright type but it is quite hearty and is a little shorter maturity than the Mayflower. And the Albion bean, which is about the same heartiness and uprightness as the Schooner but it is a shorter maturity yet.

The reason for planting different varieties is that in the Fall (harvest time), you don’t want each field of beans maturing or ripening at exactly the same time. This is because it takes time to harvest a field and in the fall, the weather can be very changeable and be nice for 3 or 4 days and then rain for 2 or 3 days. Each time it rains, it takes a few days for the fields to dry off enough to be able to harvest again.

If all the fields were ready to harvest at one time and it rained for a week and then took another week to dry off, the first fields you would harvest would be alright but each successive field would have damage or a lower yield because now the crop has gone beyond it’s prime condition. In fact, if it rained off and on, you could end up losing a lot the farther away from prime harvest you would get.

So, we put in different maturity crops for harvest reasons and also because the longer maturing ones usually yield better too. The longer maturing crops are planted first and then the shorter maturity ones, on and on until you are done planting. In the Fall, at harvest time, the crops come off in just the opposite way. The earlier maturity ones first and so on.

A couple of other things are important at planting time also. First is the depth that you plant the seed. And that is partly determined by the moisture levels of the field soil. If your field is kinda dry, you would need to plant a little deeper to be in the moisture zone but if it’s sufficiently moist, then you plant more shallow. This is where the weatherman comes in because if the field is dry but the weather forecast calls for rain, you may delay planting so as to not have to plant so deep. Or if the forecast is for more dry weather, you may want to get planting ASAP but keep adjusting the depth based on the moisture levels as you go.

Ideally you want to have the seed in just the right moisture level so it sprouts quickly and begins to grow so as to make a good strong plant. Sounds simple enough. But, what do you do in a Spring where first you have ample moisture and then the field starts to dry out? What happens when you wait for a rain to make the field moist enough to plant and then the rain shower falls apart and produces little to nothing? Do you plant anyway but just plant deeper? Do you wait for the next rain? What happens if you plant deeper but the next rain is a heavy one and it packs the dirt on top of the seeds so they can’t grow and they either suffocate for lack of oxygen or they rot because it’s too wet?

The whole thing is a big gamble and an expensive one but the farmer doesn’t just flip a coin to determine what to do. He/she has tremendous experience (their own, other family members, neighbors, etc.) to draw on and one of the tools is the weatherman. By using this experience, the farmer knows what usually works in certain circumstances and by using the weather forecasts; he/she can determine their course of action.

In weather forecasting, there are certain things that usually hold true. A “barometric high pressure area” means fair weather and a “barometric low pressure area” means the possibility of a storm. There are other signs and signals of impending weather too, like a rise or fall of relative humidity in the air. Different types of clouds. Cumulus clouds usually mean fair weather and cumulonimbus are the “awesome-anvil” looking clouds that produce things like thunderstorms. And if a thunderstorm is approaching you can usually tell if there is heavy winds associated with it and sometimes hail if you see an aqua-colored band in the cloud.

There are such things as a red sky at night indicating dust in the air and so probably the weather the next day will be dry and fair. There are many more signs that farmers use including watching how animals are acting because they “feel” the weather too. Most of these signs are used because of experience with them and the knowledge of them passed down from grandparent to parent to child. The weatherman is a little more technical in his forecast.

In our lives, we get weather forecasts from God all the time. His forecasts are the ones that tell us how we should live our lives and treat our fellow man. And if we expect to be a part of His harvest, we better make sure that when the harvester comes along, we’re standing in the sunshine and not stuck in the mud with storm clouds over our heads.

In His Word, God has made many forecasts that show the direction we are to take in life and the truths that we are to adhere to. He has even sent many “weather-forecasters” in the form of prophets and teachers to help us understand how to deal with the weather and the sunny days or stormy days of our lives.

Like the farm, each day of life brings a new day of weather. Some are good, some are cloudy and some are downright miserable, but, even after the worst storm, He still finds a way to make us feel better. Remember going through a storm and then seeing a rainbow afterward? That rainbow means the storm is over and once again there is calm and peacefulness in our lives.

One other thing, just like farmers look to the skies for certain indications of impending weather, we should do the same in our Christian lives. And farmers don’t consult tarot cards or get psychic readings to determine what the weather will be. They go to the weatherman. After all, God’s word is a forecaster of coming weather, too. Isn’t it?