Think About it ... Lessons From the Farm # 6 -- Endurance

Being back in farm country after living away for 38 years, I find myself interested in things I had no interest in as a young man. As an example, I had no interest in crops or cattle (though Dad had both).

Now, agriculture speaks scriptural and life lessons to me.

Winter wheat is a extraordinary plant.

The left part of the photo is a picture I took on February 10^th of a wheat field not far from our farm. I was impressed with the straight rows the farmer held when planting that wheat. I planted wheat, corn, rye & vetch as a young man, but my rows were never that straight!

Something happened between February 10^th and February 26^th (the right part of the picture) however, that is a bigger life lesson to me. In those 16 days, we had bitter cold weather, often dipping below zero.

By February 26^th temperatures were returning to normal. That evening on my way home, I stopped to look at that same wheat I’d taken a picture of just 16 days earlier.

I couldn’t believe how it had grown. The color was a deeper green and the plants so full the drill rows were not near as clear as just 2 weeks before. Those were 2 weeks of bitter cold.

It caused me to read up on winter wheat. Planted in the fall, cold temperatures harden the new plant’s ability to survive through the dead of winter. That early growth stage is called, “cold acclimation.”

Then, in later winter it must experience freezing temperatures as part of its growth cycle. Those short little plants can not only withstand, but must have, cold temperatures (some subspecies as low as -15° F.) in order to produce grain. That process is called Vernalization.

No freeze = no grain head.

Think About it

Isaiah 43:2, Matthew 10:22, John 12:24, Roman 5:3-4, 8:18, and 12:12, Galatians 6:9, 2 Timothy 2:12, Hebrews 12:1-2, & James 1:12 all speak of endurance needed to shape us. Read them. Regardless of our specific missions, we benefit from endurance and perseverance. I think that is especially true of defenders.

Next time you eat bread, think of wheat’s endurance journey and how it might compare to your personal journey. When you find yourself in one of life’s hard freezes, count it as something that can form you. Seek perspective in those places.