Sense of Accomplishment

There is nothing like having a sense of accomplishment. It feels good to know you got something done. It seems all too often I am involved in activities that have long drawn out paths and uncertain endings. Many times changes in priorities can cause an activity to be put on hold or eliminated completely. But everyone needs to complete something or they will go mad.

Last week, I completed several work items (finally) and I sent them off. I also finished a couple minor projects at home. So I was on a roll. While I still have vast amounts of unfinished work (paying work and home stuff), I am moving forward again. But I did something Saturday that kind of topped everything.

We have a small field that had not been mowed in several years. There were thickets of briars and even some small trees popping up. We plan on using that field as a paddock and I knew it needed to be cut soon before it got completely out of hand. The field also has a gully and a fairly steep side, so I knew it would not be easy cutting it. Parts of it were so bad I could not walk into it with the chainsaw to take out some of the bigger young trees.

So Saturday I fired up the tractor, got the Bush Hog in full spin, and started into the field. I got scratched by more briars than I can count. I cut down more saplings than I care to think about. And then I had to head down the steep back side into the gully. That was the most disconcerting part. Several times in the gully the mower got hung up. I finally had to put the tractor into four wheel drive to finish it out.

Once I cut my way into the thickest part, I was able to come in with the chainsaw and take out the bigger saplings. And then it was back in the saddle to finish it up. This was where I also realized that in four wheel drive, I could mow up that steep hill. That was cool.

As I was cutting through all this entanglement, I began to see order come out of chaos. I was making progress and it felt good. It was a tangible result to my efforts and something I have found, every man needs now and then. Progress and accomplishment are good.

Well after I finished, I drove the tractor back up to the top of the hill on the way back to the house. I had to stop and just survey my work. It was decent but not perfect. I still need to get closer to the fence line and I have some more finish work to do, but to see that field cleared was a very welcome sense of accomplishment.

Yes I was having fun. Yes I feel good about getting something done.

But why did I write this post? I suppose just so I could share about cutting the field. However I seriously have to say that the feeling of accomplishment was something I needed and I think most people do need every so often. Too often we feel stymied by the world, like we have no effect on anything. Too often we feel powerless and even sometimes just like we can't keep up with life.

I know I will have to cut that field regularly now, but I took on a task, worked at it, had a result, and I got that oh so important sense of accomplishment. I think it is important for everyone to know that feeling every now and then.

And now you have finished reading this post. You undertook its reading and you completed it. Doesn't that feel good? :-)


Copyright 2006, Kevin Farley (a.k.a. sixdrift, a.k.a. neuronstatic)

Bad Things and Contradictory Prayers

Ever have bad things happen to you? Ever been involved with bad things and contradictory prayers? I have. Contradictory prayers are ones where you pray for A and someone else prays for B and A and B are totally opposite.

It is too easy to presume that if something happens or does not happens then it has something to do with one prayer have precedence over the other. I do not think the result has to necessarily be dependent on whether or not one person's prayers are more correct or stronger than anothers. I also do not think that God is so casual in answering prayer. What I do see amazes me.

How does God decide what to do in contradictory prayers? God does not pick and choose to answer prayers at random and He does not merely look at contradictory prayers and try to deal with them as they come. Instead God works in each of us all the time. His work is so complete in us we have no idea it happens and cannot often see the result until after the fact. It is not that God reacts to our contradicting prayers. It is that God works through our lives and causes us to pray the prayers we each pray.

Now clearly, if you are praying only for yourself, there is a good chance your heart might not be in the right place for that prayer. Usually I have found that when you are praying for others is when your heart is right. But that does not preclude prayers for deliverance and self. I can see where it looks like God answers one person's prayer and not another's and it can be confusing. That is until we realize we are not God, can never be, and must not try to contain God in human reasoning.

What I realize now is that I know for an absolute fact of the universe (as given to me through the Holy Spirit in my daily walk with Him) is that God allows terrible things to happen to people at times, not to reward some and punish others, but to accomplish His will. It is part of His discipline of those whom He loves.

This disciplining process can be very thorough and will remove sin and impediments to our walk with Christ. But we don't necessarily like discipline. Consider Hebrews 12:11

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

So when a person can look at a situation and see beyond their own hurt and realize that God is not punishing them, but everything that happens is somehow "sequenced" as part of a bigger plan of God, then we can see Him at work. That is when we began to look with eyes that we did not have previously.

Through all of my discipline and personal experience, God showed me many errors I had. I have been refined as we all are being refined in our lives. And through that refining fire I came to see passages of the Bible that I never saw before. Not because I had not read them, but because I could not see until then. I know there are still some scales on my eyes, and that is why I seek God daily and read and absorb the Scriptures not from a standpoint of my own foolishness, but of God's purpose, love, justice, and mercy.

I feel that it was needed to be said: not all things can be fixed. Some things God destroys. But God does not leave holes in the lives of His followers. God replaces what is destroyed so that He may fill it with something better that suits His purposes.

So then, on the other side of those experiences, we can look back and say "it was terrible, I never want to go through that again, I will do anything and everything to avoid it in the future, but yet I know that God is in control". That is when God meets us at the place He brings us to.

Think of Hebrews 12:7

It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

Copyright 2006, Kevin Farley (a.k.a. sixdrift, a.k.a. neuronstatic)

Morning Walks

I have recently become a remote tele-commuter and I work out of my home. I am still new to this and I found that I was having difficulty staying awake around mid-morning. My wife suggested that I take a morning walk to wake me up before I start work. Well, this post is about my walk this morning.

When I stepped outside this morning, it was still quite chilly and I had my camo jacket and camo hat on. I zipped up my jacket all the way and started off the back deck. As I walked down the gravel driveway, our coon hound Millie got up from a nap and started walking with me. We walked past the front of the house and headed toward the back of the farm.

Millie would walk ahead and frequently stop and look back. Such is the nature of a dog and a mystery why God created such an animal and friend of man. She was never far from me. Her nose was in constant motion as she sniffed out things that I did not know were there. She would criss-cross my path and go bounding into the woods after something she flushed out.

I continued across the creek and into a well overgrown field. We plan on renovating this field for use as a pasture and I just wanted to take a look. After I walked to the middle of it, I was in chest high briars and brambles. I had not seen Millie for about 10 minutes. As I started down the hill toward the creek again, there she was.

Exiting the field was as dangerous as entering it with all the briars and undergrowth. But soon I was in the woods again, heading back toward the creek. I crossed the first fork of this little creek and stopped in the middle of a clearing. I could hear the rustle of leaves everywhere and hear so many different bird calls I could not identify very many of them.

A little further on and I heard the barking of many squirrels and more birds. I stood there in my own silence listening to the hustle and bustle of woodland life going on around me. I would have stayed there for hours except I was supposed to be starting work soon. So I reluctantly started back toward the house. Step by step I listened intently to the sounds around me and crossed the second fork of the creek.

I had been treated to a woodland symphony with no meter and no key. What would seem to many as disorganized and sporadic calls and chirps, to me was a composition by the One who created it all. No melody to hum, no beat to tap a foot to, but a music that reaches directly to the soul.

I finally got back to the house and rejoined the world. I took my shower, powered up my computer, and went to work. But in my head I heard the birds and squirrels singing their part of the grand score.

I like these morning walks. Today is a good day.


Copyright 2006, Kevin Farley (a.k.a. sixdrift, a.k.a. neuronstatic)