Adding Life

Have you walked up to a door before or visited a home or business where you could just see and feel the atmosphere was upbeat and full of life?

Life and those we enjoy it with are gifts. It's not our call however how long we get to keep these gifts. We had friends bury a grandson this week. A set of parents in our community dealt with losing a late pregnancy of twin boys. Another family lost a nephew. Today is also the anniversary date of losing a good friend.

So our job is not only to enjoy this gift of life but to add to it by looking for ways to bless others. People love to be around folks that are selfless, outgoing, upbeat, and positive. It's a struggle sometimes to hang out with folks that suck the life out of a situation by being self centered, negative, and criticizing.

BJ and Cassia got back late this week from helping add life to a poor family in Mission, Texas. This work group went down with Joe to build a home.

Adding life means discovering new ways of doing things. Jackson is trying out the bottom section of his Mom's shopping cart.

Adding life is having fun being around friends of all ages. Jan just found this picture going through my Aunt's stuff from Georgia. It's a picture of my dad with his two landlords, Anthony and Harry, 43 years ago.

Ezra helped me do some custom drilling this week. He rode on the back of the drill to make sure the alfalfa wouldn't run out.

The crew did a good job this week putting a sprayer tender together. This trailer will take premixed herbicides to the field to load the sprayer. It currently holds enough product to spray about 450 acres. Depending on weather, spraying pre on fields going to beans may start this week.

We used to have to check to see if the planter was working by driving around on the yard and checking for seed. Now with electric drives everything can be checked out in a warm shop. If the weather would warm up planting could start in two weeks.

I helped out the NH3 crew yesterday afternoon east of Ottumwa. A prescription is loaded into the computer and satellites vary the rate of fertilizer while driving across the field. The variable rate amount is based off of soil type and yield history.

Sometimes things get less useful or outdated with time and need an update like this bridge being widened in Douds.

You all know how our vehicles need attention once in a while. Things break down, wear out, or become unuseful.

Then when we fix, replace, or update things, we enjoy using them again and try harder. Sometimes even a good washing and waxing helps add life to what we use.

Do churches become less useful with time and do they ever need an update? Are we totally fulfilling our purpose? What is our purpose?

Is our purpose at church just to try and obey the rules? 

Is our job to keep things like they have always been? Do our churches have fences around them that look or feel uninviting to some?

Today is Palm Sunday when Christ's rode into town on a donkey to accomplish His redemptive job for us. Next week we celebrate Easter. Christ broke a lot of traditions when He came and selflessly gave us life.

When folks walk in our churches this morning let's help them feel an upbeat atmosphere and show them Christ. Our job at church is to add life to them just like Christ added life to us. Let's enjoy Life in God's house together.