Plowing our defects

I had a friend, a grain farmer in Alberta. He had a large tract of land, two square miles, or sections, as prairie landowners describe their land. He had farmed the land for over 20 years.

The main county road ran along one side of the rectangular field. I remember, you turned left onto his access road. When you reached the end of the drive, outbuildings and grain storage tanks were to the left and his house to the right.

Beyond the orderly outbuildings and house, you could see the brown wheat and barley and the bright yellow canola. The land to the left was flat. On the far right, there was a hill. It was a gentle rise; from the flat of the field to the peak of the hill it was 110 feet.

He was a meticulous farmer. He knew the details of his landholdings, the low wet areas, and the acidity of the various parts of the field. The wetness and acidity governed his fertilizing and seeding plan. He applied different level of fertilizer and seeding densities depending on the soil.

He also had a plowing plan. He knew the exact height of the hill from a topographical survey; and the slope of the land governed his plowing plan. On the flats he followed a straight line. When the slope changed at the hill, he changed his pattern and plowed across the slope of the hill.

One Thanksgiving, I visited the farm. He had recently plowed the field. I could see the furrows. I asked why he went to the trouble of changing the plowing pattern for the hill slope. He replied, “straight lines up and down the hill would have created soil erosion channels in a rainstorm. Plowing across the slope, any water that falls will gather in the furrows, not flow down the hill. This prevents erosion and preserves moisture.”

As I said — a careful farmer.

After working on the land for 25 years, he ordered another topographical survey. He had seen changes and wanted to know where he stood. Among other things, he thought the hill was lower.

He expected change, but he was unprepared for what the survey revealed. The hill had been reduced in height dramatically. It was now a mere 60 feet high.

His decades of plowing across the slope of the hill had reduced its height by almost half. Each sweep of the plow moved the topsoil down the slope. The movements were small. You would not have seen the difference from one year to the next, but over decades, the effect was measurable.

So too, in life. With our early inventories, we can see hills in our lives, the defects of character. Then with Steps six and seven, God sets a plowing pattern. The plowing pattern he designs will not run up and down the slope, which might create new, deeper channels of erosion in the storms of life; new defects of character scarring my spiritual life. He will design a pattern that protects the soil and changes the hill permanently.

For as long as we let Him, He will plow the fields of our souls. We may not see or feel the changes, but the pattern is relentless. Every time we apply the Steps, there is another pass of the plow and we change a bit. Maintained thus, the field will yield a good crop, and the height of the hill will be reduced; the defects removed.

My friend was a careful farmer, and God is a careful God.