Complaining is Optional

I saw I sign in the restaurant yesterday:

"Pain and suffering are inevitable.

Complaining is optional."

We've had an interesting spring here on the farm with the weather just not really acting like spring weather.

There's always the decision that needs to be made when you start planting, and especially when the weather is a little coolish. Do we wait to plant our oil seeds? is it too early? And you decide. You have to. Hoping that it is the right decision. Farming (and life I guess) is all about that. You make a decision, hope and pray it's the right on, and then go on.

Every year Mark and I go (and this year the little boys and Brooke) and pray over all of our fields, thank God for the blessing He gives, asks Him to protect the crops against frost, bugs, hail, that they get good rains, but not too much rains (simple right!), but at the end of our prayer we pray, "Lord your Kingdom come and your will be done with this field." Why? Because we recognize that we only know the here and now, the today and tomorrow, the present. But God sees the whole picture, He sees the beginning from the end, and He knows what is best. We know He can do the impossible. We have seen it before, crops that had a significant amount of hail, yet yielded as our best one. We know he can make a storm go a different direction, cover a field from frost damage, make rains fall, protect it from bugs. We know He is able. And yet there is always that element, we don't see big picture. Maybe God wants us to go through a trial or two to make us stronger, maybe He wants us to dig a little deeper and seek Him a little more (adversity has a way of doing that!)

It's all a process, a journey, a learning curve. So when we got frost this year that damaged our crops and had to re-seed some of Mark's dads stuff (and maybe more yet) we had to trust. Trust that God knows what is best, that His perspective is eternal and to line ours up with His. To not store up our treasures on earth where moth and rust (and frost) destroy, but rather store up our treasures in heaven. To have our heart in the right place.

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Matt. 6:21

So we learn to trust, to lean on Him, to know that we know that He is in control and be able to rest in that. In every circumstance, health, finances, family.....that our natural response is trust and peace in God. A deep lasting peace that passes all understanding. A peace that the world looks at and says, "How can you be so peaceful when there is trouble in your life."

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding,

will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Phil. 4:7

God is good, all the time. Even if my circumstances seem less than perfect. He is still good, He will always be good, because He never changes.

If I truly trust in the name of my God, the circumstances around me will not shake me, I will not become bitter or angry and complain against God for the hard times. I will know in my heart that He can be trusted with my life because He says in His word that I should trust Him.

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart;

and lean not unto thine own understanding.

In all thy ways acknowledge him,

and he shall direct thy paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6