Plowing Up The Past

 I grew up watching my grandfather plow with a mule driven plow. It looked like very hard work as he guided that plow with steady strong hands upturning the sod row after row. I watched as a little boy fascinated by the whole scene. I did not spend a lot of time in that country setting. Less than two years. I saw things I cannot forget. 

I watched my relatives churn butter. Slaughter and butcher hogs. Plant gardens. Milk cows and gather eggs from the chickens. Pick vegetables. Make tea out of roots. That is where I fell in love with fresh tomatoes. We children used old broken hoe handles with a piece of string around it for stick horses. We played in the barn, hauled hay, rode horses and fished. We ran around barefoot. Those hundreds of acres my family owned was a wonderland to explore. How I loved it. 

We moved into town never to return to the country but I have always felt more home in the country than among the city folk. 

Those years growing up in the country were not all bliss. There were wicked things that happened back there. Physical abuse. Sexual abuse. Psychological abuse. Everyone kept these things secret. There was also plenty of alcohol abuse. When we moved out there my mom used to drink alcohol. She was a single mother just trying to make it. She needed a place to live and the family provided a place though her and my father divorced and my father got murdered. 

I hated alcohol as a child. I think God put that hatred there. One day my mother bought several bottles of beer she kept in the refrigerator. I threw them out behind the house in a dirt field while she worked one day. Soon after my grandfather plowed them up to the surface. My mother had wondered what happened to her beer. I never told her. The truth got found out though I never confessed I was the one who threw them out there. 

God has a way of plowing up the past. The things we try to hide. The things we conceal from others God can bring them to the surface. He does this so we will repent and experience forgiveness. Plowing is painful. As the blade digs deep down into our hearts overturning things we have long ago covered over and at times even forgotten. Once that sin is dealt with and forgiven God throws it as far as the east is from the west. [Ps 103:12] There is purpose in the plowing. 

We should not resent when God plows up the past of unrepentant sin. It is not done for any other reason but to draw us closer to Him and free us. Sin hardened hearts do not like the plow. The harder the sod of the heart the deeper and harder the plow must be pressed down to breakthrough. May the sod of our hearts remain soft so God can do His plowing in us for His good purposes.