Where is God?

10/22/12 Monday

          It is the start of another week. The truck is back in the shop as the repair work done did not last 4 days before the starter started chewing up the new flywheel again. The service manager tried to tell me it was my fault. This is frustrating as someone we know paid over $700.00 for this repair and we now wonder if they will charge us more money for not doing it right in the first place. Meanwhile the other truck sits here without a radiator and with a possibly ruined transmission as the shop owner (a different shop than the other one) dances and is not at all excited about even getting the radiator inspected to verify the radiator is bad. I talked with Auto Zone, who said their policy is I have to work through the shop owner as he was the one who purchased the radiator. So we are stuck between the shop owner and Auto Zone, none of whom seems anxious to do something. I have a tree to cut down for firewood and will earn two hundred dollars doing so but without a truck am unable to do it.

The front of our house. Needs lots of work and some paint. It may not be pretty but it is home.    

     We continue to pray for the widow who appears to have been influenced to great anger against me and has said I am no longer welcome on her property. It is sad to us as all we ever did and wanted to do was help and love her. We wonder if her age, and the several falls she has endured, are big contributors to this sudden change in attitude. I was asked by another widow we help why God has allowed this to happen. That is a good question but one there is no easy answer to. I firmly believe there are no accidents in our life and understand that much of what we see and experience will help us to help others who go through similar things. But let me address this whole thought of God allowing things to happen.

          There is a common belief that God is involved in every little thing, that He micromanages the world. That is not the way it is. Certainly God, the creator of the universe, could micromanage every little detail, like directing every bug and germ where to go, but He chose not to do this from the foundation of the universe. God set up His laws of how things work and one of those laws is that we will reap what we sow. The rule over the earth was originally given to Adam and Eve, who were the caretakers of this creation at first. A central key in this is the fact that they (and the rest of mankind) were given a free will. That means they had the ability to choose any direction they wanted to go and they chose to do the one thing God told them not to do. They chose to rebel against God and to do what they wanted, instead of what they knew God wanted.

 The back blade that the widow gave us. It has become an increasingly valuable tool as I work to create a farm from scratch.

          We live now in a world that still follows that pattern, with a majority of the earth’s population choosing to do what they want and ignoring, thus rebelling against, what God desires. So where is God then? God has a long term plan that will culminate in the end of the world as we know it and His goal is that as many as possible come to understand His love, repent of their rebellion, submit to Him, and thus have eternal life. In the meantime, here on earth today, God is always there, and is with those who have decided to become followers of Christ. But we all still live in a rebellious world where everyone does what they want. If someone decides to go off and kill others there is little to be done to stop that. But God will intervene and answer the prayers of His children and work things out for the good of those who are His. “But Christians get killed and hurt” someone will protest and that is true. God thinks eternally and we worry about what will happen an hour from now. When you really understand that we who follow the Lord have an eternal reward in heaven, where God will wipe every tear from our eyes and there is no more pain then you realize that the trials here on earth pale in comparison to eternity in heaven. So where is God? He is always there, ready to help when you decide to accept His love and turn from rebellious ways.

Here's a before picture showing the drip tape laid in the trenches I made.    

     So we pray for that widow, and hope for the best for her. The sadness caused by her anger is mixed with understanding of the forces that are at work in her life. The price of caring is often this sadness but I would rather care and be hurt than not care at all. I do worry that the way I seem to have been misconstrued will be an excuse for others to think less of Jesus and those who follow Him. There has always been that excuse out there “I don’t go to church because of all the hypocrites” but it is just an excuse to continue in rebellion against God. There will always be hypocrites but that does not make God bad, just the hypocrites. However I work hard to make sure Christ is not looked down on because of what I have done, for I know I will answer to God for that.

          We had some rain this morning. Always a welcome thing. The sun is out now so it will be humid. I must fire up the tractor then and work this ground while it is wet and pliable. We hope to do something serious with this farm come next year so I am working hard to prepare for an early spring planting. This year I ended up working in Odessa and as a result sacrificed much of the potential for the farm. It paid some short term bills but did not help with long term plans.

and here is the after picture after I used the back blade to cover them up. Next I will carefully create raised rows over where the irrigation tape is. That will be lots of hand work with a rake and hoe     

    I will borrow Cherie’s car and run to Midland this afternoon. Have to wash towels, check on getting movement with both trucks being repaired, and pick up some groceries. So it will be a busy day for sure.