Put Your Hand to the Plow

My husband reminded me recently that Daddy was not a great handyman. He was first a father, then a singer, then a farmer, then a surveyor for the Soil Conservation Service, then for the Iowa Department of Transportation, then a handyman. As a child I would spend my day following him around the farm, helping with projects by handing him tools or running to the house or shed for something he needed.

My husband knows. John spent many hours helping Daddy with the farm chores when we lived next door to Mom and Daddy. Daddy worked on broken machinery, but rarely had a successful outcome. Daddy's "go-to" was a neighbor who ran Warner's Repair Shop. He must have saved Daddy a hundred times. John has a multiple stories he loves to tell about Daddy and his lack of labor skills. I'm pretty sure Daddy was meant to be a white-collar worker but his life situations placed him on a farm first.

Sometimes that is the way life goes. What would you be doing if things had gone differently in your life? What did you dream of as a child?

I was one of the lucky ones who actually got to live my dream! It just took me a while. A kind (or perhaps desperate) editor hired me when I was 35 to write for a weekly newspaper. When I was 38, I finally enrolled in college and spent the next four years working on my journalism/mass communications/minor in English/public relations emphasis degree. Then I was able to write in the field of marketing as my career for 12 years. Now, I still get to pour my words out on this electronic newsletter blog twice a week.

Field near San Francisco

One scripture came across my desk more than once this week and it reminded me of the above thoughts.

"Jesus replied, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God,"" (Luke 9:62 NIV).

Jesus wants us to focus on Him, not follow Him sometimes, or once-in-a-while. Jesus needs His followers to entrust themselves in service to Him...looking ahead and making our rows straight, neat, and narrow.