Photo By twoblueday gerry
When I was a kid, my Grandfather used to take me out to the country where he owns three acres of land. Pop planted a garden there almost every year. He used a motorized tiller to break up the ground to make it easier to plant the seed. I would watch him wrestle the steel beast and plow perfectly straight rows. Pop would place a focal point at the end of each row and would set his gaze on that focal point to make the rows straight. As I watched him, I remember thinking that one day I would be a strong man who would know how to plow a straight row with a tiller. I also remember when that day came. Pop taught me how to plow. He handed me the tiller and pointed out ahead to the goal. The steel beast shook me and I wrestled with it toward the row’s end. At one point, I looked back and the tiller turned and bucked and I had to wrestle it back to its place, making a crooked row and a mess out of the garden. Eventually, through the years, practice made perfect and the rows became straight and perfect.
Granddad also taught me who Jesus is. I saw Jesus in Pop way before I ever understood a single sermon this Baptist preacher ever preached. Pop lives a life committed to following the Lord. I have learned what it means to follow Jesus through watching Pop keep his eyes on Him. As it turns out, living for Christ and plowing have a lot in common. As Jesus says, “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God (Luke 9:62).” When Pop put his hand to the plow, he never looked back. With Jesus as his focus, Pop’s rows have been straight through the field of life and he has shown many The Way.
Perfect Rows
Grandpa taught me
How to plow
In straight rows
Machine in hand
Eyes in front of me
Tilling the land
Perfectly plowed rows
Where my gaze is set,
My body goes
Eternity displays its fertile fields
And all that eternity knows
From heel dented mounds
And the sprinkling of seed
Spring forth growth and abundance
Of every plant, from every breed
No more lacking, no more need
Walking the straight rows
Hands running through the green
Into eternity as eternity is seen
My eyes set out before me
My hand to the plow
Never looking back
Gazing at Jesus now
Straight perfect rows
Into eternity
The way my Grandfather chose
My gaze toward my savior
Just like he taught me
To look to the cross and to eternity
© 2010, Robbie Pruitt
“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 9:62
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