Keeping it on Manual Focus

 When it doesn't seem worth it, remembering our cause

And now for something a little different.

This morning Farmer Husband posted a quote that reminded me of a sermon preached  almost three years ago at our church: "25 Feet High & 20 Feet Wide - Get Your Camera  Off Autofocus." Flipping back through my old notebook, I found my notes from that message. Contemplating recent events on the farm, and where my heart and mind are this morning, those old notes seemed so fitting for today that I wanted to share.

The scriptures the message was based on included Joshua 6, in which God's people obeyed his detailed instructions and marched around the wall of Jericho seven days in a row, until on the seventh day the wall around the city - that was 25 feet high and 20 feet wide - came crashing down flat. Another passage from which the message drew it's point was I Samuel 17, where we see young, inexperience-in-battle David bring down a giant with a stone and a sling, in the name of the Lord.

Both stories relate mighty, miraculous outcomes to what appeared through the auto-focused view to be insurmountable situations. In Jericho, the strangest and most detailed method was followed by the Israelites, without question or complaint, to bring down the wall that was keeping them from defeating their enemies and claiming their promise. In the case of David and Goliath, the unlikeliest, lowliest of persons - just a boy - was used to bring down a giant of the opposing army whom all of the mightiest warriors in his country feared. If the key people in either of these events had remained on auto focus, seeing their situations from the generally accepted point of view, they would not have overcome as they did. Instead, they manually focused on their cause, and Who would overcome through them.

 

When we heard this message preached, in late December, 2012, the wall or Goliath we saw before us was the same old routine and commute that separated who we were from who we felt we were called to be - full time farmers. We woke up every morning and returned every evening to our own Promised Land, but the hours in between seemed never-ending, and futile.

Two and one half years later, here I sit authoring a new blog, chronicling what I am learning through full time farm work that began for me March 13th of this year. My commute is now from the Stone Cottage to the barn, my office is now this small 15 acre part of God's creation that we have been entrusted with as stewards. And as I continue to adapt to full time work here, giving all I have to fulfilling my purpose here, we stare down the next Goliath - the the roughly 11 months between now and when Farmer Husband will be able to join me in our full time farming pursuit.

Along the way from then until now, and likely from now until then, we have and will face many Goliaths. But each time, many times when we feel the weakest and most defeated, God reminds us of the shepherd's bag at our waist, full of smooth stones and ready to be put to the defense of our own personal Promised Land. And He helps us to overwrite every obstacle and heartbreak with victory and joy and positive impacts on those whose lives intertwine with ours. He softens the way with not only victories won, but plentiful gifts of time with those we cherish most, and new souls with which to share the journey.

Our job in it all is just to remember to keep our cameras on manual focus, and remember our cause, even when it doesn't seem worth it in the moments of trial.

But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep his father’s sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth; and when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard, and struck and killed it. Your servant has killed both lion and bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God.” Moreover David said, “The Lord, who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” ~I Samuel 17:34-37