Forced Patience

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Read Ecclesiastes 11:3-5

A farm has been my home nearly all of my life. I grew up on a hog farm, then later married a dairy farmer. (I also had to go from being an aficionado of the green tractor to favoring the red, but that’s another story.) I’ve been surrounded by fields of soy beans, corn, oats, alfalfa, sugar beets, sweet corn, and peas. My father was a farmer; my father-in-law was a farmer. My brother, nephew, and husband are farmers, not to mention many of our friends.
None of this makes me an expert on farming; but perhaps it’s safe to say I know a thing or two about farmers.
Forced patience. That’s the phrase that describes it best. Not every farmer is patient by nature, but nature forces a type of patience on the farmer, and it becomes a part of how they must live. They have no choice in the matter. Planting, rains, growth, ripening, and harvest cannot be rushed and will come when it’s time, not when it’s convenient. If a farmer has his planter ready to go in February, he still must wait for the ground temperature, soil conditions, and weather to be right for allowing the best growth of the seed, which won’t like happen until April or so. (This is Minnesota, for Pete’s sake.) Likewise, he could try to harvest his corn in August when the weather is still nice, but the stalks will be green and muck up the combine. The grain will be small. It won’t come off the ear well and will be too wet to be stored anyway. There’s just no rushing it. Doing any farming task before its time would bring no reward.
This is a life lesson we all need to learn. Forcing God to act before His time (as if we could!) will not bring the result that He desires. This is very hard because we only see how we are affected by the waiting, and don’t begin to comprehend what God can see.
As I wait for my son to come back to the Lord, everything in me wants it to happen right now! That certainly seems like the best outcome for me. As I’ve studied and sought God in this area of my life, however, I’ve been reminded that God is working all of the experiences in his life for good – to be used for God’s glory – while we pray him through it.  My prayer is that God will allow all of the experiences necessary for my son to become the person God wants him to be when he is ready to serve God again. (And I pray for that to happen as quickly as possible – I’m still a human mom, after all.)

We must wait for all of the experiences necessary for God’s purposes to be accomplished.

·         How does this perspective help you?
·         Where or how does it put up road blocks for you?
·         Pray for God to help you see your situation from His perspective.

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