Forbearance

Abraham and I went out at midnight last night (he had taken a late nap and didn't fall asleep until quite late!). All animals appeared to be just fine; they were having a midnight snack in the moonlight.

This morning, Isaiah noticed Fern mounting one of the babies (our yearling calves); Toots was in standing heat. Isaiah also said he saw one of the babies licking Fern, but I didn't observe it. Perhaps she went into heat in the night. Perhaps she's bred. Without standing heat, we won't call Giovanni again. Cautiously hopeful, we'll wait until the next cycle. And maybe the one after that.

Phil and I pulled soil samples this morning from our land and the property next door, which we're now care-taking for the owners in absentia. I think our soil is better this year than last. Or maybe we just pulled samples in slightly different places. But I am optimistic that it is more well-balanced than before.

In the afternoon, we moved the chicken house. So far, we've been moving it downslope only, so we could push it. Today, though, we had to pull it upslope. The truck handily pulled it up into one of the cows' paddocks, but when Phil went to drive it out of the paddock, the wheels spun freely in the muck (hardly an inch—it didn't seem deep enough to lose all traction). Phil finally had me drive while he pushed, and I think I gunned it a little too hard (the clutch and I have never been friends). He was sprayed with dung, but took it in good humor.

While the boys and Phil went swimming, I stayed behind for a bit of quiet. I was reading through Numbers and came across the story of the spies who saw giants in the land, and returned and said that it was too hard to conquer. Chapter 14 begins thus:

And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness! And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.

This story always used to make me wonder what on earth the Israelites were thinking. I mean, God had worked mighty miracles to get them out of Egypt; he'd worked more miracles to provide for them (and chastise them) in the wilderness. Why didn't the Israelites get it?

But today, I realized what they were thinking, and it was very sobering for me. For me, since we moved, there have been times (especially at the beginning) when I have wondered if all the ways God has provided in the past have been leading up only to a cataclysmic flop. I've wondered if God was stringing me along, providing in smaller ways so that when all of our savings, all of our retirement, all of our previous home's equity was gone, then we'd be destitute. And that way we would learn something about how powerful God is and how he can smoosh us at will.

Obviously, a very twisted view of God.

To write that out now, months after I last felt like that, I grieve for my little faith. If God provided before, he will provide today, too. And tomorrow.

And I am thankful for the forbearance of the Lord, who did not destroy me (as he did that generation of unbelieving Israelites).

Thank you, Lord.