CONFUSED HUMANS MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD
July 2, 2019When I was a kid on the tractor, I needed to pay attention to the landmarks and keep the wheels going down a straight path. Today? Not so much. The high technology of the 21st century can be installed in that diesel powered horse and all goes perfectly straight. The box even tracks the true acres and the seed count and the gallons burned and run hours, and, my favorite, information overload item…lunch time.
When I was a kid on the tractor, the dreams were BIG. The ideas to improve were voluminous. The next step was planned to start those big dreams in the week following tractor time. Even better, some really big ideas were planned to start the second I stopped that night for chores. But alas… reality set the schedule and the adults filled in the important details of a budget.
Side note: I spent a fortune on those ideas and really had nothing to show for it…until yesterday.
And what a day it was. Got to know a perfect stranger 45 years younger than me. Got to see some “totally awesome” real ideas turned into real property and real equipment. Got to see what a couple of bucks of investment can do for the young minds and the best of the next great thinkers. The details of this “tour” are a story all by itself, but that is not the focus of TRACTOR TIME right now.
Start here if you are( once again) needing to get right to the point of the BLOG.
Tractor time clears the mind to drift. Tractor time lets the soul relax and take in the beauty of it all. Tractor time makes the body want to get up and go…go…go. For years I donated to the Alumni programs of the school of engineering in Milwaukee. It felt like somewhat of a time consuming empty hole that I wanted to pay off someday(?) Then I saw it. That smile on the face of my tour guide and recent graduate was spread wide with pride and beaming with a great sense of accomplishment. He knew of my big dreams. He knew of the cost. He knew of the focus it takes “to graduate.” It was a time of payback “in spades.”
Side note number two: We passed time between studying and going to classes to play the game of spades. This is a card game not really suited for a 20th century computer. (My opinion?)
During all of that tractor time I was getting a good lesson from a Bible verse that is often quoted as discipline. I Corinthians 13:11. Allow me? “When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of a child behind me.”
Here’s a thought? Tractor time is necessary to break up the soil. Tractor time is used to prepare the soil. Tractor time is important during the seasons of sowing and harvesting the crop. God only knows how this time will produce its fruit. But rest assured, I witness to you today; that the BEST HAS come to those who know and love the Lord. For the rest of us out there…more tractor time for you. Careful now? That smokin’ horse may run out of fuel and the time to start will never see the light of day.