farming

Farming was one of the things I always fancied doing when I was a little boy.

Indeed, through my later teenage years I used to work on farms. Up in the north of Scotland through the summer months. Randomly over a series of months in South Africa. And one whole summer in my student days - four months long - on a huge big farming enterprise in the Canadian mid-west.

I'm not an expert. But I learned a few of the basics, I guess.

I know the sequence involved in harvesting crops. It begins with ploughing. Breaking up the ground. Then harrowing, breaking up the soil yet further until it's receptive to seed that's going to be sown.

You don't have to work on a farm to know all that, of course. It's pretty basic stuff.

And it works much like that in the 'farming of souls' which is what I'm called to do.

The period of actual harvesting, bringing in the crops, is relatively small and short. At least compared to the preparation time and the work that's required in advance.

When I worked on these farms I was generally only there through the summer months. The time when it all comes together. The crops are ripe, the days are long, and the fruit of a whole year's work is there to be brought safely in.

But I quickly learned the demands that there were on the folk who worked on these farms through the rest of the year. It's not a job, they would always say - it's a life.

A hard, demanding, sometimes fairly dreary sort of life, with not a lot to show for all the effort that's put in, as all the often drab routines of farming life were followed through.

But, of course, they had their eye on the summer. The harvest that one day would come.

My life's a bit like that. There are 'seasons' in God's great work. Through all the routine, day-by-day activity of 'autumn', 'winter', 'spring', when not a lot is happening (so it seems), I keep my eye on the 'summer times' of God's unfolding purposes of grace.

I'm looking for the harvest. Still.

When I first came here, I was clear in my mind that it was with a view to a 'harvest' that the Lord had called me here. I'm still waiting.

'Preparing the ground' takes time.

A lot of my time is spent 'preparing the ground'.

Meeting with people, preparing the soil of their hearts. Studying the Scriptures, preparing the seed of the Word.

Today there are added demands that way. We've a new set of Wednesday lunch-time services starting this week: and with that the need to be preparing a series of studies - at least in some sort of outline. And the SU group at the primary school will be starting again as well: and thus the need to prepare some sort of 'programme' for these half-hour Thursday lunch-times at the school.

Preparing the ground. Looking towards a harvest which I trust and pray will come.

It's God who 'gives the growth' after all.

Harvest is always miracle. But harvest is never magic. It requires us to partner with God and do our bit.