Being a city boy for thirty three years and growing up in Chicago; making the move to rural Wisconsin was quite a challenge. Buying a five acre homestead, seemed like all of the land in the world; coming from the city where families lived on top of each other. It felt like the 1960s television show, Green Acres, come to life, “Farm living is the life for me.” My neighbor even had a house trained pig; no, not named Arnold, but Sarah! It was eight of the best years of my life; planting an eighty foot by one hundred foot vegetable garden and raising chickens, geese and goats. It was my piece of the “Promised Land.” God gave Israel a lot of specific instructions about farming in the Promised Land. Those laws of agriculture are still pertinent today. Follow them and you will reap a blessing. The greatest blessing for me, gleaned from this experience was greater depth of understanding of all of the parables, analogies, metaphors and instructions that Jesus gave his disciples that used farming as an example. Luke 9:62 contains one such statement. Luke 9:57-62 is cited below in order to give the full context.
“And it came to pass, that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. (58) And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. (59) And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. (60) Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. (61) And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. (62) And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:57-62).
Plowing one hundred foot rows taught me to set a mark and not look back, if you want straight furrows and a completely plowed field. Looking back renders plowing useless. Look forward!
Our teachers taught us this in grade school, at least in my day. All of the desks in a classroom were facing forward. Focused attention was a foundation of learning. Teachers who try classroom in the round; find that students looking at students may work for discussion; but it doesn’t work well for teaching on the black board or write on boards, overheads, and multimedia presentations of today.
Divided attention hinders success; just as divided loyalties. Distractions are a hindrance. The Devil is good at destroying our focus of attention. Jesus said: “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Lot’s wife looked back at Sodom and Gomorrah; yearning for that city life more than salvation.
“But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt” (Genesis 19:26).
The book of James says, “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:8).
The New Testament tells the stories of men and women who put their hand to the plough for Christ and did not look back. Nothing got in their way of serving the Lord and the Gospel and we know their names. Those, who looked back; those who said, “But Lord, let me first…” we don’t know their names. They never followed Christ. We are called into the apostolic church. We are bought with the blood of our Lord. We are His! Are we focused on the Kingdom, or are we looking back at the world. Lot’s wife is a sobering reminder for all of us.
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