A few summers ago (not exactly sure since the humidity of the Missouri air erased my memory.) I spent the fourth of July on my deceased Great Grandmother’s farm, whom I respectfully called “Cow Grandma” from the youngest age I have been. It was an unforgettable trip. It was the first summer that I had my license. I had driven with my father asleep and my iPod on shuffle through Nebraska, Kansas and the lovely state of Iowa. But my story is not about that, no not at all. There is not much interesting about the open road. Unless we debate about why there are millions of construction sites, always unattended, and yet your forced to go another 40 miles under the speed limit for the safety of the these ghostly union workers. No it truly takes place on the farm, and the adventures that I shared with my brother.
My great Uncles, whom I love and adore with my heart, are rednecks. Without hesitation they relieved the doldrums of the day for me and my brother with two ATV’s that were covered in a camp like print with AK-47’s and 7 feet machetes strapped to the sides. As we started them up we took them onto the empty country road that spanned the state and rode to the pasture that was nearby to test our masculine aura. Once on the pasture we road through the mud around the pond multiple times causing pits of dirty water to flood through the tender earth.
After some time, we began to find new paths that were more daring and expressible to my growing and engaged testosterone levels. As I sped up so did my brother and we taunted each other. I finally decided to take another path, hoping to cut him off. But I was pushing 60 with little room to go. As I came across my brother’s path I stared at him rather than in front of me where there was a pond and a log with the ability to knock me clean off the seat. Before I knew it I was flying through the air, screaming a profane word, and landing in the hot steamy pond with the ATV rolling behind me and eventually sinking in the mud. All this could have been prevented if I was just looking at the path ahead of me.
So many times we do this in our life’s. We get so caught up in a moment, or we look back on our past, or we get distracted by those around us that we forget to look forward and Focus on God. We set goals that can be achieved, but unless we have our eyes in the right place we will never reach them. We do all that we can, and struggle even, to do all we are called to do in our own strength when God is waiting for the moment we just rely on him. Somehow we have allowed the thought that we found God, and that we found salvation when in reality it was him who reviled himself to us, and that it’s his love that sustains the relationship. If was based on our faithfulness than we would be hopeless and the point of Christ would have been left pointless.
The lesson I have learned this year is to just trust him. He is able. He is after all God of the universe. Although I fall short, daily even, I know that God is faithful. Even when I am faithful I can never amount to who God is. I keep reminding myself to keep my eyes on Jesus, and not focus on anything else. If I focus on finding and searching things out for my own sake, I take my trust from God and end up putting it in something that is faithless and will end up disappointing me. Anyway, it’s just something to think about.
