Here's Pastor Dave McDowell's weekly devotional that he sends out to members of his church. Dave is my brother and serves as the Music Minister at Stewartstown UMC in PA.
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder,
then please tell me that I am not going blind!
I love the season of spring.
I love to watch as plants and trees
begin to bud and bloom.
.
I love the sound of the first lawn mower
and the smell of freshly cut grass.
I love the shade of green
that is only revealed in nature
when the tree leaves first reveal themselves.
I love the sounds of baseball
and the smell of hot dogs grilling.
I love the smell of Easter flowers
and the taste of coconut on an Easter cake.
I love feeling the first warm breeze
that replaces the chill of winter.
I love ignoring the coat closet
as I exit the house.
I love the daylight that is present when I awake,
and is still accompanying me into the evening.
I love spring.
As a child,
I grew up on a working farm,
and there was another sure sign of spring.
That would be the manure spreader.
In farmspeak,
it is also referred to as the #*!# kicker.
It is the piece of farm equipment
that distributes the manure collected in the barn throughout the long winter
onto the thawing spring fields
to fertilize the ground.
Now the #*!# kicker
is not the most elegant pieces of farm equipment.
It lacks the majesty of the red Farmall tractor.
It lacks the largeness of the grain harvester.
It lacks the brute strength of the plow.
It is not exactly the first piece of farm equipment
that captures the inquisitive attention of a 10 year old farm child.
But it is an important piece of life on the farm..
When the #*!# kicker is out in the fields
doing its thing,
anyone with a sense of smell knows it is spring.
One only needs to take a deep breath
to know that soon the crops will be
pushing their way up through the soil.
Because of its humble purpose,
the #*!# kicker is often a dirty, dull looking piece of equipment.
That's what I thought.......
until last week.
As I was driving through the countryside,
I was enjoying the feel of one of those early days of spring.
I had the window of the car down,
and the radio turned up high.
The daffodils had started to bloom,
and the sun was warming this little section of the world.
As I came over the crest in the hill,
the tune that I was humming
was interrupted by a sight that I had never seen
in all my days on the farm.
It was a #*!# kicker,
but it was painted in pastel colors of teal and yellow!
Now I must confess
that I have never seen a pastel painted #*!# kicker before.
It's somewhat unusual.
It's like meeting a tall leprechaun,
or a beauty pageant contestant with bad hair.
It just doesn't fit.
Now I must admit that I like the color, teal
but I'm not so sure about it on farming equipment.
After all,
it's still a #*!# kicker,
Okay, maybe a #*!# kicker designed for South Beach,
but it still does the same thing.
Perhaps a cornpicker would look good in mauve,
or a baylor would be stunning in fuchsia.
But it's still just farming equipment.
We sometimes like to make things
look better than they really are in our lives.
We put flowers and plants around our septic tanks.
We part our hair differently to cover a bald spot.
We choose clothes to hide our less than perfect physiques.
But the deficiencies are still there,
there are just hidden.
As we approach Holy week,
we approach a God who not only knows fully our deficiencies,
but embraces them and nails them to a cross.
No attempt to paint this cross in pastels,
it's not meant to be pretty.
But it's meant to change us,
and give us access to that which is indeed beautiful.
Oh, the bald spot might still remain,
and the extra pounds might still show up on the scale,
but when we come before Him willingly, as we are,
He makes all things beautiful.
And that's far deeper,
then a thin coat of paint.
May you journey to the cross and empty tomb
during this upcoming week,
and know that He continues to change those who are willing,
from what we were to what we will be.
How lovely on the mountains are the feet of Him
who brings good news,
who announces peace and brings good news of happiness,
Who announces salvation and says to Zion,
'Your God reigns!'- Isaiah 52: 7
.
This is very interesting. My father was raised on a dairy farm and when we would visit my grandparents, I remember the #*!# kicker and the smell. It brings back good memories from my childhood. As Pastor Dave says God knows each of our deficiencies but embraces them and nails them to a cross. We need to remember this as we journey through Holy Week and approach Easter.
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