Sneaky God

The last milk we got before we gave Christina antibiotics has been set aside for cooking. It's probably fine to drink raw, but just to be safe we're cooking it.  The kids' first thought was pudding.  And it uses eggs.  That works!

The other day I was downtown protesting the death penalty, like I do every Wednesday noon, and a group of kids walked by.  They were wearing FFA jackets, Future Farmers of America.  A friend asked if I had been in FFA.  I laughed out loud.  I would never have been in FFA.  I was on the honor roll and I was going to college.  I was going to be a professional, a doctor or a professor.  I looked down my nose at FFA kids as those who couldn't make it in my exaulted academic endeavors.  God must have laughed at my hautiness.

Instead of becoming a doctor, I became an environmental science bureaucrat.  Then a magazine publisher.  Then a marketer.  Finally a minister and now a farmer.  And by the way, this farmer thing sneaked up on me.  I was just going on sabbatical and then returning to ministry.  I still may return to ecclesial ministry, but right now I find myself in a ministry of soil and life.   God has deepened the sense of meaning we find in working for the kingdom of heaven in caring for the land.  I still minister but now I minister to the land and animals, to the people who buy our food, and to my family. 

I have also learned a new and deep respect for those who make a life of farming.  It takes much more intelligence and knowledge than I ever realized.  I am constantly aware of how little I know in spite of all the books I've read.  Farmings takes compassion and an almost supernatural persistence and faith.  These are the people who work alongside God, the eternal creator, to do that most fundamental ministry of feeding people. 

I wasn't going to be a farmer.  We started this life just to feed ourselves.  But then we had more milk than we could handle, so we started selling it.  Then we had more eggs than we could handle, so we started selling those.  And now we are thinking of welcoming another cow. 

Yeah, God is sneaky.