What Things Have You Thrown Away?
A farmstead is a horse of a different color. If you’ve ever walked up to an old abandoned farmstead, one that has sat empty for any period of time you know it’s different.
A few months ago we looked over an old farmstead that would soon be up for sale.
Like any house and property being considered, there are some things you look at or look for. In a house, you look first at the roof and the foundation.
A farmstead is a horse of a different color. If you’ve ever walked up to an old abandoned farmstead, one that has sat empty for any period of time you know it’s different.
It’s different because people have had a life here. There’s been a family with its life aura and they’ve left.
Some families leave a lot of things, as if they took only themselves and a bare minimum. The farmstead looks like the people put the necessary items in their car but on the way down the driveway decided that some of it wasn’t necessary and began throwing it out.
I began this post a week ago and much hasn’t changed in relation to the idea. It reminds me of an article I read in a Christian publication years ago. It was a piece written about the things Scarlett O’Hara had jettisoned in her quest for survival.
That may be the thought behind the people leaving the farm. It may merely have been “Survival” and all its benefits or demands. On the flip side, how much did these families leave or throw away that they should have taken with them?
Did they ever realize they had left something important that they should have taken with them? Unless we know where they were going we wouldn’t know and perhaps they didn’t ever understand either.
Through the centuries there has often been a shifting from one civilization into another. The United States began as a mostly agricultural country and continually shifted to a more urban, factory-type country.
As we’ve shifted, it looks like a jettison has taken place in our society. Things that just a short few years ago would have been unthinkable have begun to slip into acceptable. So, as we jettison certain standards we are embracing unholy habits, because of course, nature abhors a vacuum.
Anytime there is an empty space it will be filled and we are choosing to fill it with demons. I’ve often wondered when non-Christians rail against Christians and people of faith, just what about “Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, or thou shalt not bear false witness,” those people don’t like?
Apparently, they don’t understand what keeps them safe. They don’t understand that the passions which would wipe them from the face of the earth are kept in check by a God of love that they don’t understand because it’s certainly not the good, passive nature of Christians.
A few things to keep in mind:
Christians are a work in progress; sometimes it gets messy. Life is something done BY us, not only TO us.
Most change is gradual. No one is perfect just as in “Perfect practice makes perfect.” We don’t always practice perfect and have to have a (few) second chance(s).
There’s no magic involved, just directed, persistent effort mixed with faith, prayer, and most of all God’s help.
Just because it’s fast doesn’t mean it’s easy.
–And especially, it takes effort. If you want something easy, you’re in the wrong place.
Matthew 12:
43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.
44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.
45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.
