Tobacco, Corn, Cows, and Plows

Corn

 

 

We have been discussing "Four Rules for Life" and today I want to talk about #2 "Plant your corn early."

 

In the book of Ecclesiastes Solomon made a similar statement to this rule:

 

6 Plant your seed in the morning and keep busy all afternoon, for you don't know if profit will come from one activity or another—or maybe both. (New Living Translation)

 

 

Growing up in Snellville, GA we did not have a large farm but the garden was large enough. I remember that my parents would plant a different variety of beans (loved picking those butter peas! - sarcasm button pressed here), tomatoes, squash, and depending on the forecast and the previous year's harvest they would determine how much if any of these to plant.

 

There was one crop that was a "given" every year: corn. And it was generally one of the first seeds placed into the ground. White corn and yellow corn that had unique names like "trucker's favorite" or "silver queen" and anywhere from one-quarter to one-half of the garden was planted in corn every year. Why?

 

Corn is versatile and a staple in many of the foods that we eat and now, thanks to government regulations, it is also part of some of the gasoline that we put into our tanks (processing food for the stomach for our vehicles instead of our neighbors? Another topic for another blog! :-) )

 

"Plant your corn early" and Solomon's advice of "plant your seed early in the morning and keep busy all afternoon" is an easy way to remember the following about life and living:

 

1) "Plant early" because you do not know what the weather holds in the future.

 

I have two children and I think about "planting early" when it comes to teaching them about the issues of life. Solomon in Proverbs stated it like this:

 

Proverbs 22:6

6 Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it. (NLT)

 

As parents we must "plant early" in the lives of our children because as the weeds of the world and the rocks of rebellion begin to fill the tender soil of their heart then it will be much tougher to plant seed that will produce a righteous harvest.

 

My wife and I started planting seed in our children as infants. We would play bible story cd's, worship music, and even the bible on cd as they would go to sleep. My son is 9 and my daughter is 5 now and they still ask for this every night and I am amazed at what they have retained by these simple seeds that have been planted.

 

2) Since we cannot predict the future we need to "plant early and often" in our relationships, businesses, and other daily affairs because we do not know which will produce a harvest or a bust.

 

I taugh in a private Christian school for over 8 years. In my relationships with students I tried to plant seeds of not just a teacher-student relationship but also seeds of friendship that when they had grown and graduated from high school they would know that I was not only a teacher they had who taught them academics (sometimes not real well!) but someone who was genuinely interested in their development as young adults and now adults.

 

There were a few students who no matter how early or often we planted seeds and tried to water and fertilize they were just not going to produce that long term relationship we was trying to attain. If I had only planted those seeds then I would look back at my teaching career with fulitity.

 

But because the Lord keep pressing me and pushing me to keep sowing into the lives of those He placed in my path there were many other seeds of that long term relationship that have produced a great harvest as I see they have grown and matured into responsible adults who I not only am proud to say they were a "former student" but now I can also say they are my friends.

 

Plant your corn early, often, and in great abundance... because you never know which seeds will take and produce a great harvest!

 

Until nex time... God bless!



Tobacco, Corn, Cows, and Plows (Part One)

I came across this saying a while back and quickly saved it to my Evernote account. It is one of those quotes that sticks with you because of its simplicity yet profoundness that can be found in the wisdom of a life of experience.

 

I entitled these as "Four Rules for Living" in my notes and I hope you enjoy them as much as I have. Review them occassionally and see if they help remind you of how wisdom will present herself at times in the simplest form.

 

1) Never slap a man with a chew of tobacco in his mouth.

 Why not? Well, you may dislodge his "chew" and cause him to choke and possibly die. Secondly, he has a ready battery of ammunition to fire back at you once you have completed the slap! And if you have ever been around a tobacco chewer you know that is something you do not want aimed your way.

 

 

Some may call it Karma, some may say it's getting what you deserve, some will say "what goes around, comes around" and many other adages concerning our actions toward our neighbor. There is a scripture I would like to point out that I believe helps to drive home this "rule for living".

 

Proverbs 26:27

27 If you set a trap for others, you will get caught in it yourself. If you roll a boulder down on others, it will crush you instead.Holy Bible, New Living Translation ®, copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights

reserved.

This is where the "what goes around comes around" phrase originates. The actions that you take towards someone else will be the actions that others take towards you. If you show a total disregard for their situation, others will show disregard for you when you are in a situation. If you show concern and respect for others then concern and respect will find its way back to you.

By following this rule it causes us to pause and consider the consequences of our actions. We like to invoke our right to "free speech" and the freedoms that we enjoy as citizens of the United States and as children of God's kingdom but we also need to remember that joined with these freedoms is the responsibility for the consequences of those actions. You are free to yell "fire" in a crowded theater just those that may be injured because of your lack of foresight are free to sue you for their injuries.

As a co-worker used to tell her math students on a regular basis when working a complex math equation you need to "stop... and think." And I believe in its own colloquial way that is what this rule reminds us to do when it comes to our actions and speech... "Stop and Think."

Rule #2 next week...



















 



Now it begins...

 

 

Hello! And welcome to my first blog!

 

I will endeavor to update my blog weekly with thoughts on living for Christ, life, sports, and thoughts and observations in general so I hope you will check back frequently and interact with me as these blogs are intended to be discussion starters and not enders. :-)

 

So let's begin...

 

What a day to create a first blog! The 11th anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, PA on September 11, 2001.

 

As many of you are doing today I have reflected upon where I was and what I was doing when I first heard the news about the attacks. I was sitting in the Senior Pastor's office of the Snellville Church of God planning the day as we had a funeral to attend that afternoon and then to attend an Atlanta Braves baseball game that night with Gerald Hanley (a church member), Gene McGuire (the senior pastor), and Dallas Howard (the youth pastor).

 

A member (Carson Turner I believe) called and told the pastor that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center and I quickly made my way to my office and went to www.foxnews.com and was taken aback as the events of that day unfolded. We made it to the funeral but as many other events that day the baseball game was cancelled as it should have been.

 

As I read through the various news websites, facebook posts, and tweets yesterday I came across a story about a note that a gentleman had written that said "84th floor, west office, 12 people stranded". It had been thrown out of a window and received by a gentleman on the street who took the note to an officer at the Federal Reserve Building who as he was about to radio the information the tower collapsed. That note was given to his family ten years later after DNA confirmed that the blood spots on the paper were indeed that of a husband and father and his wife also confirmed his handwriting.

 

The wife told her story of searching the hospitals and the city frantically trying to find her husband to no avail and then settling in her mind that maybe he did not suffer in his final moments. The note delivered to her confirmed her worst fears that her husband was trapped above the heat and flames and could have very well been alive as the tower collapsed.

 

As I read the story I began to realize that for those who may share the same scenario as me in that I did not have a relative or friend pass into eternity that day and once a year I will commemorate, remember, and honor those who died on that fateful day there are those for whom 9/11 is a daily reminder of their loss.

 

Husbands, wives, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, grandfathers, grandmothers, grandsons, granddaughters, employees, friends, co-workers who will never make it home again. I thought of those who that day said "good-bye" for the final time unknowingly and now live daily with an unimaginable loss. My heart hurts for them and as a father of two of God's most precious children and the husband to the most wonderful wife ever I cannot imagine the loss I would feel even 11 years later if they were suddenly and tragically taken from me.

 

So on this 11th anniversary of those attacks as we remember that day I invite you to pause for a moment and to lift up in prayer to our Heavenly Father those for whom 9/11/2001 is not just an annual reminder of how evil Evil can really be and that He would wrap those great big arms of His love around those for whom 9/11 is a daily reminder of whom they have lost.

 

Noel