So, today I decide to till the garden instead of exercising. Running Tilly is definitely exercise! She must not have slept well, because she is sputtering all over the place! She’s lost her spunk! I baby her along, hoping that she’ll kick into high gear – no chance! I think she’s upset because I was checking out tillers on the web! Who would pay over $700 for tiller? I can buy a lot of vegetables for that amount, even from the farmer’s market! It’s supposed to rain today and the Ladies’ Missionary Group is coming in an hour and a half, but Tilly has more lessons for me.
- Maybe it’s time for her to retire. Dear older-worker-bee, do you need to step down and let the younger ones take over? Sometimes we complain that they are not doing the work, but maybe it’s because we don’t trust them to do the job.
- Dear younger-worker-be- possibility, do you need to step up to the plate? You may say, “But what can I do?” Can you scrub a toilet? My husband and I joke about the fact that that is where we started serving the Lord – it’s true! You would probably be surprised at what you could do. I’ve never met a pastor yet that refused help! J
- Both sides of the fence require a lot of grace!
I think Tilly knows that I was just thinking about checking out Craig’s List – that’s when her belt fell off. My father was a farmer and a machinist – he could fix anything! So, in the spirit of my heritage, I took a closer look. Hm, there was a part of the machinery that was hanging at an odd angle, and at a closer look, I saw that a nut was missing! How would I ever find a nut in a newly tilled garden? I couldn’t, so I went to the garage. Now, growing up on a farm, I appreciated my father’s work bench that had every size nut, bolt, nail, and screw that you could imagine! But, alas, no nut here of the right size. I prayed as I headed out to the garden. “Lord, I need a miracle. You know where that nut is. I will NEVER find it without your help, and with out the nut (I mean the one belonging to the bolt!), Tilly is done for the day!” What a gracious God we serve! After another look around the garden, and when I was ready to call it quits – there was the bolt! Jehovah-gireh!!
- How much do you trust God? How hard are you leaning on the Everlasting Arms? We often want to lean and ask only for the select items on our list: the ones that we understand. Can you ask for His help in the areas you don’t understand; and are you ready to accept the answer He gives?
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55: 8,9
- PATIENCE! This is the hardest lesson we (or maybe just I) will ever face! I was ready to junk the whole thing. Forget gardening! Shove Tilly over a cliff and call it a day. God’s ways are SO much higher than ours; but as Paul Harvey used to say, “Now for the rest of the story…” Maybe tomorrow!
Beyond Common Sense 