The Gift Of Freedom
December 22nd, 2005 by Northern FarmerLife marches on here in the frozen north. I think today was the second day of official winter, which always makes me wonder who ever figured that sure ain’t from Minnesota. Winter sometimes starts here in October and breaks sometime in April. But today was a rare day, no wind and the temps got into the thirties with sunshine to boot. I was sweating, honestly, I was soaking wet in the heat of the day. It’s funny how the body can get used to sub zero temps and when it warms up a person can overheat. Sawing wood was the order of the day here as normal.
A few more weeks and many of the calves will be leaving here and we get our once a year paycheck. I hear people complain how hard it is for them to make it nowadays from paycheck to paycheck. Well, try going for a year, eh. That’ll teach a person how not to go into any debt with monthly payments. Probably no other single thing in life has taught me money management more than knowing it has to last, or else. So what naturally comes from living like this is cheapening down, but at the same time living better than before. When you look at how a family has to live in order to make it a year, priorities change. I personally know people that would get a large cattle check and blow it all in on toys, and what a wreck they had. But I guess they succumbed to all the advertising stating that “You Deserve Itâ€. As I look at what’s happening with society as a whole, that attitude is becoming so apparent and the misery it is causing is unbelievable. And the sad part is, people don’t even see it as it tears apart their families and their chance for a happy life. I often wonder how some people can sleep at night living like that.
What has happened in our own situation is quite the opposite of the modern way. Once one realizes that living simply is a better way things start to fall in place, sometimes fast. Our monthly bills are so small people would think we’re lying if we’d add them all up and let it be known. The family is happy! There, what a statement. A person starts to see that the things that are now taken for granted in society do nothing more than eat away at our personal freedom. God wants people to live in freedom, it’s stated over and over again. And God promises we will be happy living in freedom, and I can say that the more we turn our backs on the modern ways, the more freedom we receive. And for example, here on our farm, since turning our backs to the industrial ag corporations the “gift†of freedom has poured into our family and farm. We follow the Lords Word and have no debt, do not covet our neighbors toys, and the result is this farm and family has the freedom to farm anyway we see fit. We’re not talking all that small now either. We’re not stuck producing something because we have to pay the debts. The freedom God has given us lets us farm new ways without worry, to try new things without worrying that we’d pay the price if we goof.
I hope this is not taken as bragging, because believe me, it’s not. My faith and my freedom lets me “see†the misery people go thru when they follow the modern economic god. And I believe it’s never to late to make positive changes no matter how far a person is into the modern culture. But a person has to take that first step, no one else will for them. And once that first step is taken, the partner that you requested “as†the first step will help show you the way. Give the problem to God, and follow Him. I highly doubt that God will say, lets go out and buy stuff on plastic because you my child deserve it. Naw, it don’t work that way. Doesn’t matter if your country or city or somewhere in between, doesn’t matter if your stuck in a cubicle all day everyday. Ask God for freedom, and then follow what He says. And you know what, even if you’re in the city, He will be leading you down the agrarian path. If a person doesn’t think so, well, I can’t imagine God leading us on the other path. Freedom is simple.
December 23rd, 2005 at 12:18 am
Well, once again a post chock full of wisdom and Biblical teachings. I bet there are at least a half dozen sentences that could be lifted and quoted as mottos.
Again, thank you for provoking your readers to love and good deeds.
JFC
December 23rd, 2005 at 7:51 am
Oh! I so know what you’re talking about! For a very long time, I did as society expected- college, grad school, corporate job, car payments, house payments, toys purchased with debt, extra-curricular activities, (I never did take a vacation in a beach resort somewhere exotic though
). I never felt, and was, so restricted and pressured. When I started living a Godly directed life, things became so much simpler and freer. Slowly but surely, all that baggage and extras have and are being eliminated and there is so much joy in our lives!
I just read Elisabeth Elliot’s devotion for the day and she writes about boredom. “we waste our time, our money, and our energies when we pursue so frantically the pleasures which we hope will bring us relief from boredom. We end up bored with everything and everybody. Work which can be joyful if accepted as a part of the eternal order and a means to serve, becomes only drudgery. Our pettiest difficulties, not to mention our big ones, are cause for nothing but complaint and self-pity. All circumstances not deliberately arranged by us look like obstacles to be rid of. We consume much and produce little; we get depressed, and depression is actually dangerous and destructive….”Godliness with contentment is great gain.” Those words were written a long time ago to a young man by an older man who had experienced almost the gamut of human suffering, including being chained day and night to a prison guard. Contentment is another word which has fallen into disuse. We think of it, perhaps, in connection with cows–the best milk comes from contented ones, doesn’t it?–but it doesn’t take much to content a cow. Peace and fodder are probably all it asks. We are not cows. What does it take to content us? How could Paul, after what he had been through, write as he did to Timothy?”
The current world culture has everyone so restricted with worldly expectations and restrictions, they are bored to tears! There is such freedom in God’s restrictions and expectations! A Godly life is a life of joy and contentment!
December 23rd, 2005 at 7:51 pm
JFC,
Thanks, and I seen that picture of your daughter pole vaulting, boy, I couldn’t do that. Nearest I ever came was jumping over a fence with a bull in hot persuit.
HH,
“We consume much and produce little; we get depressed, and depression is actually dangerous and destructive…”
Bingo! That’s hitting the nail on the head..”We consume much and produce little” I couldn’t agree more. A consumer society, a me, me society, shove God out of the way, and what happens, well to sum it up like the Bible would, death.
December 24th, 2005 at 2:50 am
Hmmm….did you write before or after you read what I sent. This sounds like you agree. You say it better than I did in those first few chapters. In fact, You said everything I took two chapters to say in just two paragraphs. Talk about economy of the written word.
I sense a power behind your words here. I a so thrilled to see the truth spoken and we can speak it with confidence when we are doing it the Lord’s way.
Now off to study how to embrace brevity. OH ratz…I just don’t have it in me. I too talkative.
Blessings Tom!!!!
December 24th, 2005 at 4:47 am
NF,
There’s no way I could pole vault like that, either. I do okay playing baseball, football, basketball, even track events like 400m and long jump (at least in the old days), but to have the upper body strength to bend a long pole, and then have it catapult you over a bar, all the while maintaining control so that you don’t land on your head on the wrong side of the bar … no way. Even in my prime, there’s no way I coulda’ done that!
I might get motivated to jump a fence if a bull was chasing me, though.
JFC
December 24th, 2005 at 5:51 am
KSMM,
To tell you the truth I didn’t read your two chapters until just before I emailed you.This post just came as I was writting just as most do. I had no idea what I was writing until it came. This happens a good portion of the time.
JFC,
I tried pole jumping once in high school. The law of gravity won. I have a deep respect for your daughter’s abilities. I’m better at being a hockey goaly or something like that