Guest Post: A view on faith

My sweet husband has agreed to write a guest post for me here. He has a blog which is waiting it's first post...maybe this will encourage him to get it going!

So Shanyn has been after me a while to write a blog post. I have my own blog called Duct Tape and Jesus but I have not written anything there yet. I am hoping to write a little more in the future. Life does however seem to creep into the spare time I have and my writing seems to take a back seat. That and I type way slower than I’d like, so sometimes moving on to a project that requires less typing and more hammering is easier.

However when I am in the middle of those other projects, my mind is always working. I am always thinking of stuff. Oh sure the stuff on my mind is always changing, I have projects upcoming, projects completed, family stuff, old stuff, and new stuff.  I think about lots of things, these things range from the straightness of our fences, manure and fertilizer calculations, I think about woodworking projects, restoring my old trucks, I think about me being a dad and wonder if I am doing a good job, and I wonder if I am being a good husband.  My mind drifts all over depending on what I am doing. Shanyn kind of laughs at me, I have been known to walk out of the house saying I am going to get something from the garage and I walk out an hour later carrying a gate for a corral. She just shakes her head and laughs but she knows I have a plan and a use for the gate, somewhere.

Looking back I have had a lot of time to think by myself.  I have spent countless hours moving buckets of gravel and dirt, countless miles driving back roads, countless hours looking at the changing seasons through the window of a tractor.

In all that time I am trying to remember a time if I did not believe or have faith that there was a God. I can’t remember a time if I didn’t believe. Is that strange? I am not sure. I have to be a man of faith. I am a dad, a husband, and all the other things I am in life. I am a farmer so I have to have faith.  There is so much in life that I think science cannot explain fully. I am involved in agricultural research as my real job but we also have a farm. Farming requires a lot of faith, we plant seeds, fertilize and wait on feed our cows and hope the calving goes well and that the wolves or bears don’t sneak away with a calf.

I have to have faith that I am being a good dad and a good husband. I am planting seeds I hope that will produce a harvest later. A harvest of good faith, integrity, compassion, and all the things I hope will be seen in my son.

It is all based on faith. What a word.  Simple, powerful, and yet not so simple.  Faith. How can you not have faith when you are living in this world? There is so much around us that I think requires faith.  We have to believe we are doing right as Christian people and we have to have faith that when we pray that God hears our prayers, we may not always get the answer right away but He has a plan. We have to have faith that God will guide us and protect us. Much the same as we hope our livestock will be protected. We plant the seeds in our kids and in our community and we hope that they will produce a harvest. A harvest of goodness, hope and love from the seeds we plant. Faith that we have done the right things and that maybe God was guiding us in our actions.

We are fed by faith both our bodies and our soul. Faith in the fact that God will grow our crops to feed our bodies and faith in God that as we pray and study the word he will feed our soul.  I thank God for the blessings in my life and all the answered and unanswered prayers. I am part of his plan and I have to have faith in that.