LESSONS FROM THE FARM AND FATHER

Growing up and doing work on a farm provides many opportunities to see God's handiwork and how simple He created things to work. It gives you a greater appreciation of life and instills in you some good old-fashioned 'horse sense," A person can learn so much from nature and just by watching the animals. But you also learn some valuable lessons from people that you might not learn elsewhere. Two examples: 1) When I was about 12 years old we were finishing the work for the day and had just put all of the equipment and tools in the barn. My older brother, my father and myself were closing the barn up. Just as we were closing the big doors, my brother, in too big of a hurry, failed to notice that my father still had his hand on the bracket to the other door. So when the one door slammed onto the other, it caught him right across the fingers. I thought, 'Uh oh!' I was sure my brother was going to get punished severely. But I was not prepared for what happened next . My father gave him a look that said, "I sure wish you hadn't done that.  But in that look he said even louder, 'I know it was an accident and that you didn't mean it I love you!'

2) Two years prior to this I was engaged in one of my favorite activities, driving the tractor, I was breaking up some dirt one afternoon while my father was working on another tractor by the ditch on the north side of the same field I was turning. Now, the old Farmall tractor I was driving had to be turned by pulling a brake on one rear wheel or the other. If you applied the brake to the left wheel, the right wheel kept turning, so naturally, the tractor turned left.  If you pulled the right brake, you turned right.  It seems so obvious, but when you're 10 years old...you sometimes forget these basic instructions. My father was seated near the ditch directly in front of where I was headed, and he was intent on his work, so he didn't see the big double wheels of the tractor until I pulled the wrong brake and started the tractor sliding in the wrong direction. I panicked, trying to stop that big old thing, but my father jumped out of the way at the last minute, and the heavy front end of the tractor thumped to a stop right where he had been sitfing. I had fully expected him to come and clean my plow (and not the one on the tractor), so I sat with my hands on the wheel, white-knuckled, bracing my self for the eruption. Instead, he walked up to me and calmly asked, 'Are you okay?' I couldn't believe it.  Here I was sitting on this huge tractor that had almost driven over the top of my father, and he asked if I was okay! When I told him I was fine, he simply said, 'Well, good. Do you know what you did wrong?' I told him, 'Yes, Sir." And he said, 'Great.  There's a lesson you won't soon forget' And he just smiled, patted my knee, and went back to work!

When I think of these two stories and my father's nature over-all, I am reminded of Ephesians 4:32.. 'And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

For His Cause, Tim Woodward

(Copied from The Smithville Church of Christ bulletin)