A "Blast" from the Past to Give Hope to the Future

It is strange how we tend to forget events from our childhood years until something triggers those memories. Even though some of them were tied to unpleasant tasks, or events within our families, or things such as planting crops by moonlight, we still had a life lesson to learn.

My Dad worked a full time job in the city during the day so when he got home at night he had to tend to the farm. But he always used some country psychology that worked quite well to get us to help him. Each spring my sister and I had to help plant crops. My sister would always find a way to step her foot in the water bucket and get sent to the house.  But that's for another day.

One evening we would plow the fields. The next night would include the final preparation of fertilizing and tilling the soil.   Then I had the mental preparation for being in the fields until 3:00 a.m. the following morning. You have no idea how many times I would go to bed praying for rain the next day for planting time.

Soon, I realized that those prayers would only put off the agony. I recall my father giving me the rationale for planting at night. “It is cooler at night so the plants get a better start before the heat of the sun wilts them”, he would say. Pop also said "Another reason for planting at night was that the moonlight made the plants grow taller." Dumb response that a child would believe?   It wasn’t until recently that I recalled the entire ordeal of spring planting time.

It was dusk on the mountain and as I walked outside the house I heard a sound that flooded me with those memories. The green water frogs were out in full chorus. I paused and listened and then recalled him say, “It’s not time to plant the first crops of spring until the water frogs are quieted three times”.  I remembered in my excitement to get plants into the ground one year I did not pay attention to his words of experience and numerous plants froze. 

God gives us signs each day that HE repeats day in and day out.  Year in and year out.  We are so busy with our technology that we forget what the Father is saying.   We just have to stop and look for them.

The Bible is filled with similar life experiences. But so often we wait until we fail before we fall back on the Scriptures for guidance. Jesus used these life lessons quite well to teach spiritual truths through common events. In Matthew 13, Jesus took an event found in everyday life and applied it to the kingdom of God. Likewise we need to open our eyes to the life events around us.

There is a message that the Lord has revealed to every one of us that should be passed on to our children and others. Those events can change lives and give us hope in a world that is becoming so twisted by people seeking their own agenda rather than God’s.

Isn’t there something you need to tell your friends, like a story from the past that will give hope and direction for their relationship with the Lord?

“A blast from the past to give a hope in the future”? (60’s term)