Putting Faith into Action!

Have you ever heard the Parable of the Two Farmers? Don’t go looking in your Bible, you will not find it there. However to its credit, it did show up in one of my favorite movies, Facing the Giants, which I am currently going through a summer youth bible study at the church where I am the youth leader. It goes like this: 

There were two farmers who desperately needed rain, and both of them prayed for rain. But only one of them went out and prepared his fields to receive it. Which one do you think trusted God to send the rain? The answer: the one who prepared his fields.

This is not a Bible story but a simple illustration that conveys a complex thing. You do not always realize it, but you are one of those farmers praying for rain. Each of us have a respective field: work, finances, family life, school, friendships, etc. Or like I discussed with my students in class... one has a summer job, one takes piano lessons, one is in choir class, one plays volleyball, one is in band camp... even as youth or adults, we aren't farmers, but we must put our faith in action so God can bless us to learn in whatever area we are placed in. I have to prepare to teach class each week and practice and prepare the music as the church piano player. We cannot just show up having not practiced or studied for a test and expect to just have the rain fall in our favor, so to speak. We have to put time and effort, commitment and dedication into what we are doing.

We can seem spiritual enough through prayer, but how do we respond with our faith? We find ourselves in predicaments desperately needing rain on the fields of life. Although He could, God does not always let it rain immediately. Sometimes though, it is more of a process than a plan. In a world where we can optimize so much in our lives, we crave specifics. We get leveled by the world’s pressure to find and do what we are “good at” so that we can be useful. This produces hard questions. “Am I where I’m supposed to be?” or “What are we going to do?” Maybe even, “Am I good enough?”

We default to the doctrine of Jeremiah 29:11 so often in Christian culture. “For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper…not harm you…give you hope and future’.” It is a marquee verse and rightfully so, but we can miss the point in Jeremiah. By including this in His Word, God is not promising some dramatic revelation of our precise calling. He is promising hope for us–His people.

At some point, we do step into a specific role God designed for us, but the point is to walk with Him. It is here we find real identity. Like the farmer who prayed and prepared, it is important for us to assume a posture of active waiting. One truth we can lean on is that God is closest to the broken.

We can assume two things: God wants us to be close to us, and He wants us to be people of action, even when we are in waiting.

Paul wrote to Philemon from prison telling Philemon to “prepare a room” for him, confidently trusting in Philemon’s prayers for his release. If you ask for rain, prepare for rain. James later writes that we should ask God faithfully for wisdom and depicts anyone who doubts as a “wave tossed by the wind.”

Let us recognize and rejoice in the cross in all this.

Hebrews describes Jesus as the “author and perfecter of our faith.” He endured agony, especially in the waning stages of His life on Earth, seeing a perfect joy for all, surpassing anything else. Remember Gethsemane. Even Christ wanted God to act swiftly and help him escape the suffering of the Cross. But we can celebrate that Christ made it possible for us to be with God.

You can trust two more things: God hears us and God moves on time.