The Blessing of No

Today I dug a ditch and put in pipe to hopefully redirect excessive amounts of rain water (like we've had lately) so our chicken pens don't flood. Working in a muddy pen isn't enjoyable, it leads to a fair of amount of slipping, that in turn leads to falling in deep mud mixed with chicken poop.

I do my best thinking when I'm moving. If I'm sitting down that movement can be anything from fooling with a pen in my hands or playing with my goatee. I wrangle the thoughts I get while thinking by writing which is why this blog exists.  Today was no different. I had plenty of time to think because it took me quite awhile to dig and this is what I came up with at the end of the day.

God saying 'No' is a blessing.

If you'd asked me last year why I liked the song "I Will Go" by Starfield I would have told you because of missions. I was listening to that song today and singing it (none of my neighbors could hear me over the revving engine of the corvette two houses up) and a particular line caught my attention;Where you want me I will be.  Up until a few months ago in The Problem With Dreaming I hadn't really reconciled my current inability to do missions like I want to and God's sovereignty. Today I heard that line and I realized that where He wants me isn't in Africa.

Two Sundays ago was our Mission Sunday when we take up the Lottie Moon Offering and do our Missions Fair (one of my favorite annual services) and for the first time I was glad to be a sender. I was fine with seeing how God was working in those He called across the globe and it felt good to know I had a part in them going.

What occurred to me today while digging and getting caked in mud was that 'no' was a blessing. If you follow me on any social media platform I'm on;Facebook,Twitter,Instagram, you will have by now seen plenty of posts pertaining to farming usually ended with #futurefarmer. The majority of my Christmas presents were farming books, I picked up another on dairy goats yesterday. I've spent the past two years dealing with chickens (happily) and the last several months researching on pigs,goats,sheep, and mini cattle. I've said several times while full time missions isn't my calling I wouldn't mind teaching sustainability on short term trips. Oddly enough knee deep in mud today I concluded that the 'no' to what I thought was a good thing in my going to Africa was a good thing.

Five or ten years down the road when I (hopefully) have a farm of my own and enough knowledge to share it is exciting to think that I could teach people God has called to the mission field and they could take that to the nations as a way of spreading the gospel. Building things for people is great but teaching them and then letting them do it themselves is better. I don't want to do something for someone that they can already do themselves. That isn't helpful and it just creates a system of dependency that makes things worse. But, if second-hand I'm able to help a family in Africa or personally somewhere here, learn to raise their own food so they can eat, then I'm not hurting or creating dependency. What I am doing is helping someone not only take care of themselves I've opened a way to get to know people personally so the gospel can be shared. If things work out how I hope they do with this future farm of mine I hope to use the skills I learn to fund the people God calls in a less conventional way, by selling fresh meat, cheese, and vegetables.

My 'no' means I am able to help others do what God has called them to do. I won't say it is easy all the time because I do still long to go to Africa on a mission trip but understanding that not getting what I want is for my good makes things easier. God certainly knows what he's got planned for my life and thus far it has been full of surprises. The trust I'm building now can only help me later and hopefully others if I get the chance. Where God wants me isn't halfway across the world but right here where I've lived my entire life. There is a chance that will change but for now I'm where I need to be (even if there are times when I want my feet caked in red dust and to be surrounded by a people who speak a language I don't rather than chicken poop and mud)

It is strange to think that my wanting to live on a farm when I was little (I blame my father) has become something I plan on doing now. Hours of research and book,article, and blog reading is just another step in doing what God has for me, it wasn't what I expected when I was younger but I've learned life rarely turns out the way you expect it and that is a good thing.

So understand this, next time God says no remember that it is for your better. He isn't giving you what you want He's giving you what you need. Your good for His Glory. There isn't a better trade-off and we come out with the rewards in the end. A 'no' isn't going to be easy to swallow but its worth is immeasurable. He knows far better what is good for us and as a good and loving Father He is going to give it to us.

 For your listening pleasure I've included this fantastic song. You should give it a listen.

 

The Oldest Story in the World.

"It's the oldest story in the world. One day you're seventeen and planning for someday, and then quietly, without you ever really noticing, someday is today, and that someday is yesterday and this is your life."-Nathan Scott


It's Christmas Eve and I've come home from another Christmas Eve service at church. Only this one has been different from all the rest. This time it hit me that my friends and I are actually grown. For the first time in as long as I can remember all my friends were not at the service. We didn't stay after to take pictures and hang out for awhile. The service ended and we went in different directions, to work, with family, or in Gage's case waiting to come home from Nashville.

Growing up is a strange thing. Like the quote above it somehow sneaks up on you. It doesn't matter that you know that you are getting older. Somehow it is relatively easy to just hang on to the moments of freedom and staying out late, the next thing you know you've blinked and that doesn't happen anymore. You've got responsibilities and it is harder to get everyone together. Maybe that is what makes the time when you are all together all the sweeter, when you realize that the forging of memories is serious business if only because at some point memories are harder to make and being able to recall times when life was less hectic and things seemed much more carefree is comforting.

This is the natural order of things. You plan for someday, you know that at some point you won't be able to do all the things you did in High School or in College, but then that time comes and it feels so sudden and you weren't entirely prepared. Then you take a step back and realize someday is now and life will never be quite the same. Things change but that is how it is supposed to be. It isn't easy but it is good. We weren't meant to stay teenagers forever, at some point we have to grow up, sometimes that means we go in different directions and not being near each other.

But the crux of friendship isn't about the physical closeness so much as knowing that these people will be there for you when you need it. These are the people who know you best and distance doesn't  change that. 

So to whom it may concern, I look forward to the story continuing through the years we might be adults but that certainly hasn't stopped us yet.


(A/N:1000 points if you understand the reference of the quote without looking it up)