Hay Fields

I live about 5 minutes from town, which is just enough distance between me and city limits for a good country drive.  I regularly see cows feeding, swarming hawks and owls, tractors plowing and sweet morning mist rising from farm ponds.


All through late spring and summer, as long as the rain lasts, fields and fields of tall green hay rise up.  It always interests me.  I'll watch it begin to grow, each day gaining height.  Then, one bright day I'll see a dusty green tractor start the all-day processing of baling the hay.  When five o'clock hits and I head back home, the farmer will still be out, cutting and baling the fields.  By next morning, the fields are freshly cut with all the hay in neatly packed bales. 

I thought about that farmer yesterday - how accomplished he must feel when he looks behind him as he drives back to the barns.  He'd never know how accomplished he was, though, if he never looked back.

Sometimes in our Christian life, we are told to never look back, to press forward.  But I think looking back is a good thing.  What awesome testimonies come out of remembering where we were when God picked us up & carried us though a storm.  When our children were hurt and we cried out to a loving Father, who heard us and intervened. 

Oh, God, that we may remember what you have done.  That we may look back, not with heavy hearts but with hearts free and rejoicing, at all the plowed fields of life.  Oh, Lord, that we may worship you daily for this!

I Will

I will put my own spiritual life before all others. I will purposefully draw close to God.
James 4:8 Come near to God and he will come near to you.
I will read the Bible more and daily.
Psalm 119:24 Your statutes are my delight; they are my counselors
I will practice self-control over what I put in my body, making each decision to put something in my body a conscious decision.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
I will speak good. I will practice thinking good and pleasing thoughts about myself and others.
Philippians 4:8 whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
I will exercise my heart, knowing that my body is God’s temple.
Proverbs 27:19 As water reflects a face, so a man's heart reflects the man.
I will support my husband as the spiritual head of the family.
Ephesians 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.
I will make a conscious effort to be Christ-like and raise my son by example, rather than just by word.
Proverbs 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.
I will practice making sure all I do glorifies God.
1 Corinthians 10:31 whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
I will find and make time, knowing I have the support of my household, to do these things.