June 18, 2022, Brook Cherith Farm
I live on a small farm in the Ozarks. Sometimes I wonder why I do. There is really nothing holding me here as far as financially. I was asked by a friend the other day if the farm made me any money. I had to tell him that we barely break even. So why do I live on a small farm? Well, it was really nice during the pandemic. We did not have to change much of what we did. But why now? In my understanding of the way things are, I am here right now by the providential hand of God. So, let’s start there.
I just spent about an hour in my garden cultivating and hoeing our field corn. Why field corn? So I can afford to feed my animals, since feed prices have skyrocketed. Anyway, I digress.
There is a lot of time to think and reflect when one is performing a task such as hoeing field corn. Did you know there is a weed (orchard grass) that looks a lot like a young corn plant? I mean almost a spitting image, except for the little white line in the middle of the blade of the weed. You have to look close as you swing your hoe and adjust your aim in stride. This serves as a great illustration. There is a right and a wrong. There is a corn plant(the right) and a weed (the wrong).
Francis Schaeffer predicted in the early 1980’s that the idea of the antitheses would fade away in our society. To put this in terms that we can all understand, he predicted that the obvious right and wrong, the thesis and antithesis, will fade and there will be what I call a “mushy middle”. Our society was built by people who understood right and wrong. They appreciated and spent time reading their bibles and thus they developed a healthy fear of God (the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom).
For some reason, this obvious thesis and antithesis has disappeared. As I write, today, in North West Arkansas there will be a gathering of around 30,000 people to celebrate what the Bible calls an abomination. They are celebrating what Romans chapter one calls inconvenient acts in which God has given them their own way.
The worldview roots of our forefathers have eroded. To borrow another idea from Schaeffer, world views are never stagnant, they are always being strengthened or weakened. But something has happened in the last 20-30 years to fast forward this process of weakening. It is my theory that since the inception of the internet our thoughts and actions have gone from being fueled by the analog to the digital. Analog illustrating real world experience to the digital world of our thoughts and actions driven by the madness of things like social media, pornography, digital money, etc.
So how does a farm fit into all of this? A farm is a daily reminder of the analog, real world. Before you get to thinking this is not a good way of explaining myself. Jesus used a real world wheat field to illustrate the spiritual harvest. C.H. Spurgeon left us with a whole book of farm illustrations from his writings and sermons. Al Mohler, once spoke on his podcast about the two Californias, the Napa Valley and the Silicon Valley. One being agrarian and God fearing conservative and the other being the liberal God denying liberal. That last sentence was my conclusion of Mohler’s article.
So why am I planning to stick it out on the farm? It could be that it helps me to relate well with the pastors in Latin America who I am blessed to train, (with my real job). On my most recent trip I was able to spend some time with pastors in southern Mexico. They gave me some pointers on how to grown corn. Guess what, they were right.
I think the farm is God’s design for me who needs a daily humbling and daily reminder about the real world of animals that need fed and birthed and buried and field corn that needs to be freed from the antithetical imposter so it might bear fruit.
Come to think about it, I might rename my farm “Analog Acres” because the name right now is “Brook Cherith Farm” which always brings a raised eyebrow since it is mostly unknown, being from the Bible.
I live on a small farm in the Ozarks. Sometimes I wonder why I do. There is really nothing holding me here as far as financially. I was asked by a friend the other day if the farm made me any money. I had to tell him that we barely break even. So why do I live on a small farm? Well, it was really nice during the pandemic. We did not have to change much of what we did. But why now? In my understanding of the way things are, I am here right now by the providential hand of God. So, let’s start there.
I just spent about an hour in my garden cultivating and hoeing our field corn. Why field corn? So I can afford to feed my animals, since feed prices have skyrocketed. Anyway, I digress.
There is a lot of time to think and reflect when one is performing a task such as hoeing field corn. Did you know there is a weed (orchard grass) that looks a lot like a young corn plant? I mean almost a spitting image, except for the little white line in the middle of the blade of the weed. You have to look close as you swing your hoe and adjust your aim in stride. This serves as a great illustration. There is a right and a wrong. There is a corn plant(the right) and a weed (the wrong).
Francis Schaeffer predicted in the early 1980’s that the idea of the antitheses would fade away in our society. To put this in terms that we can all understand, he predicted that the obvious right and wrong, the thesis and antithesis, will fade and there will be what I call a “mushy middle”. Our society was built by people who understood right and wrong. They appreciated and spent time reading their bibles and thus they developed a healthy fear of God (the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom).
For some reason, this obvious thesis and antithesis has disappeared. As I write, today, in North West Arkansas there will be a gathering of around 30,000 people to celebrate what the Bible calls an abomination. They are celebrating what Romans chapter one calls inconvenient acts in which God has given them their own way.
The worldview roots of our forefathers have eroded. To borrow another idea from Schaeffer, world views are never stagnant, they are always being strengthened or weakened. But something has happened in the last 20-30 years to fast forward this process of weakening. It is my theory that since the inception of the internet our thoughts and actions have gone from being fueled by the analog to the digital. Analog illustrating real world experience to the digital world of our thoughts and actions driven by the madness of things like social media, pornography, digital money, etc.
So how does a farm fit into all of this? A farm is a daily reminder of the analog, real world. Before you get to thinking this is not a good way of explaining myself. Jesus used a real world wheat field to illustrate the spiritual harvest. C.H. Spurgeon left us with a whole book of farm illustrations from his writings and sermons. Al Mohler, once spoke on his podcast about the two Californias, the Napa Valley and the Silicon Valley. One being agrarian and God fearing conservative and the other being the liberal God denying liberal. That last sentence was my conclusion of Mohler’s article.
So why am I planning to stick it out on the farm? It could be that it helps me to relate well with the pastors in Latin America who I am blessed to train, (with my real job). On my most recent trip I was able to spend some time with pastors in southern Mexico. They gave me some pointers on how to grown corn. Guess what, they were right.
I think the farm is God’s design for me who needs a daily humbling and daily reminder about the real world of animals that need fed and birthed and buried and field corn that needs to be freed from the antithetical imposter so it might bear fruit.
Come to think about it, I might rename my farm “Analog Acres” because the name right now is “Brook Cherith Farm” which always brings a raised eyebrow since it is mostly unknown, being from the Bible.
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