Dairy Farming in South Central Pennsylvania makes for a busy life. I’m in the barn before 3 a.m., starting the day by milking and caring for the 100 dairy cows on our farm. For nine months of the year, it’s a grueling schedule with not only the twice per day chores of caring for the animals, but the rest of the daylight hours are spent growing crops to feed my dairy cattle throughout the year. During the day, in the solitude of a tractor, I am able to find time to pray, but with my life as a dairy farmer, it is easy to see why I have struggled with my daily devotions and Bible reading.
During a Christian Teen Retreat in November 2014, which I attended with my son and as the Youth Leader of our Nazarene Church, I recommitted to God that I would do a better job with daily devotions. I knew the only way I could do that would be a set a specific time of the day aside and stick to it. The time that best worked for me was right after my morning farm chores and breakfast and prior to starting my field work for the day. That means devotion time is at 6 a.m., in place of the nap I would usually take before going to the fields. My plan was to have a short devotional time so I could still have time for a brief nap. I stuck to it throughout the month of May, even though I was exhausted from planting corn and making hay.
June of 2015 brought with it a lot of rain, and one of those rainy mornings, I found myself reading Matthew 25:31-46. At the end of my reading, I prayed, “Lord, send me someone who is hungry, thirsty, or in need, and help me to see that need. Send someone today, and help me to be a blessing to that person.” After my prayer, I feel fast asleep, around 6:30 a.m. After sleeping soundly for 20 to 30 minutes, I awoke to my son-in-law, Cory, who lives next door, knocking on my bedroom door. Because I was so tired and in such a deep sleep, it took me a few minutes to gather my thoughts and understand what he was saying. Apparently, someone had lost control of their vehicle on the wet roads and ended up stuck in one of my corn fields.
After Cory left, I sat on the edge of my bed and began to dress to go back out into the rain. Without even thinking, I started grumbling to myself. “Don’t people know what a tow truck is? Do they think I have nothing else to do?” And then it hit me. The Bible verses that I had read less than an hour and the words I had just spoken to God came back to me through my sleepy fog and hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt like a child who had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. As I apologized to God, I suddenly felt a closeness with him that I had never felt until that very moment. It was as if he was right there in the room with me. I finished dressing with a new sense of urgency.
As I went out into the rain, my whole attitude changed. Rather than grumbling, I was feeling quite anxious to help the person who’d been in the accident. It turned out to be a neighbor, friend, and the Pastor of a Nazarene church that was part of our district teen group that attends retreats together. Pastor Kevin offered to pay for my assistance, but there was no taking money for the task God had sent in answer to my prayers. This was a blessing from God himself. I learned a lot that rainy June day. If you ask God for something, expect an answer, and sometimes, expect that answer almost immediately.