Another Day For Which To Give Thanks

Scripture Verse that caught my attention today: Psalm 118:1 (and also verse 29 which is identical) O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever.

Observation: This verse, which has a long heritage in our family as one of our meal prayers, both begins and ends this Psalm. And it is how we would do well to consider beginning and ending our days.

Application: Yesterday had a fair amount of challenge associated with it. Little things, really. But they sort of added up. (Warning: possibly boring farm story ahead…but not to me!)

Yesterday the plan was to bale my third cutting of hay. And I began the day with thanksgiving, grateful that the rain had held off all week and wasn't scheduled to arrive till today.

There was lots of dew on the ground in the morning, so that afforded plenty of time to make sure all the equipment was ready.

Well, everything was not ready! I thought the wagon was ready, but just on a whim I decided to check the pressure on the tires. I pulled the wagon forward a few feet and realized that one the tires was completely falling apart—the tread was coming right off. It was a good thing I found it when I did, but it still needed to be fixed. I first tried exchanging it with another wagon tire, but the rims were not quite the same. No big deal really. I sent our son off to the repair shop so that I could start raking the hay.

I raked for one round and decided it still needed a little more time to dry. I stopped the tractor and then, just a few minutes later, again on a whim, decided to take the tractor and another tool to fluff out the windrow I just made. Turned the key; nothing! So the next hour was a bunch of trial and error and several phone calls to the dealership’s tractor mechanic. Finally got it running. By that time the rest of the hay was dry, so I raked it up, put the new used tire on the wagon and we were off and things were going well.

With about 20% of the field left to go my wife (who was driving tractor while I loaded the wagon) alerted me that there was steam coming out of the front of the tractor. Yikes! Fan belt was off. No time to fix it; gotta finish hay before son’s football scrimmage and before the dampness of the evening sets in. Called neighbor and thankfully was able to borrow his tractor to finish. Got it all done. Whew. Was 30 minutes late to scrimmage but all was basically fine.

After scrimmage (which was good but lasted about an hour longer than I expected) I’m starving and parched from the long day of baling. Can’t wait to stop and grab a bite to eat. Then we saw the typed sign at the drive-in window indicating that the finance systems were down and they could only take cash (which we didn’t happen to have!). Same deal at the convenience store—and we needed milk too. Okay, we’ll use the bank atm. It didn’t work either! Finally was able to score at the grocery store, whose system was actually working, 5 minutes before closing, getting cash back from our debit card.

And yet, all things considered, it was a great day. We accomplished what we had hoped to accomplish. It took a fair amount of extra work and even some extra energy in the form of creativity, but ultimately all was well. God provided what was needed, even in terms of the wherewithal to figure some things out on the fly. Still have a tractor to fix, but the hay’s in, it’s good, and I’ll just have to get to the tractor later. All that’s left to do, which I already did last night but can certainly be reiterated today, is to give thanks.

O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.

Prayer: Lord, thanks. Period!

(Scripture readings today included three interspersed chapters of Jeremiah (chapters 21, 24, and 27), Psalm 118 and 1 John 2)