I have spent most of my life in rural areas where agricultural industry was prominent.  In my hometown, they grew rice.  Where I went to college and spent most of my twenties, they raised chickens.  (I like to think of it as the chicken finger basket of the world [with Texas toast and gravy.])  Where I live now, they grow corn.  As I drove through some of those fields this weekend, I thought about the American farmer, especially the ones I know personally, and why and how we admire them as symbols of what it means to be American, to be a man, to be a Christian. These men are well-acquainted with the ancient science of convincing the ground to produce its fruit in its season.  They know what it is to work for months, doing everything right, timing their every step to match the seasons, sometimes having only a few days' window to do whatever it takes to plant hundreds of acres, so that it will not all be in vain.  They know what it is to watch it all wash away in a flood year, start over, and do it all again.  They do it all while their critics and self-styled moral betters berate them as ignorant and backward, while wearing their $400 Nordstrom jeans that come worn and dirty, a costume for the 30 year-old child who wants to know what it would have looked like had he ever done an honest day's work.  While the posers do what they can to make the farmer's life harder and his voice quieter, he just goes on about the business of feeding the whole world, his critics included.  Out of necessity, he has learned to fix it, whatever it may be.  He loves one woman, and he didn't need to go find himself to prove it to himself.  There's no steady paycheck, no nine-to-five.  He provides for his family out of what he's able to produce.

In the same way, the man of God must not be satisfied to get secondhand knowledge of God and His Word twice a week.  The man of God must know the Lord for himself.  He must put the Word of the Lord into practice daily as his livelihood.  He can't count on handouts, fair circumstance, or fair weather to come his way.  It won't always be easy, and sometimes it will flat out break our hearts, but "Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.  He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him" (Psalm 126:5-6).