Security

At the end of the day, what's your security? Investments. Currency. Commodities. Passwords. Control. Information. Work. Self. By the way, none of these things are bad. We need and use them every day. My question revolves around our purpose. What we hang on to. Where we put our comfort for today and our hope for tomorrow.

Some folks attempt to make others look small in order to feel secure about themselves. Some struggle being happy about other's success or accomplishments. Generally this visible action indicates invisible troubles so we shouldn't be quick to judge.

Our crew put in long days this past week. We cut soybeans when they were dry enough. Bean yields are definitely correlating with the amount of rainfall during the growing season.

We have been hauling soybeans to the processor as well as putting them in our older bins to keep the combines running.

Then when the soybeans got tough later in the night we would switch to corn.

Early the following morning the truck drivers would head for Des Moines or Burlington with soybeans. While the field crew would bring fuel to the field.

And have corn ready to load for when the guys got back from their first early morning load. Our early mornings have been wet, even foggy. Then around noon we'd switch back to soybeans and repeat the process.

By the end of the week most of us were wore out. What a blessing to have the gals take turns coming to the field with supper. Thanks Rachel, Kristin, and Emily. Last night was a good night to cut beans and by the time we parked the combines we had 10 semi loads on wheels ready for delivery Monday morning. Kudos to Ryan, Ezra, and Papa Jon for helping our family late.

We also started tillage. Corn on corn fields. Working in fertilizer. And sowing cover crops on the more erodible acres.

We had hog manure custom spread on 240 acres on bean ground going to corn next year.

I've had folks tell me their security is in full bins. So they always know they will have resources for upcoming bills and inputs. Nothing wrong with that as long as it doesn't become their only comfort. We have been looking into bin setups. Not for security. Hauling straight from the field to the processor forces us to forward contract. That means when the markets show a profit we sell ahead of time. It works well. We need bins for managing harvest when the processor isn't taking corn.

I'm often tempted to put security in family. However just like full bins, bank accounts, and investments, they are really not ours but "on loan from God" as Rush used to say. Yes, we are to provide. Yes, we are to live to have an impact. And yes, we are told in the Bible to be productive, "Be fruitful and multiply". That doesn't just mean having kids by the way. Sitting on the "table" for supper Thursday evening is Elijah, Ethan, BJ, Dean, Malaki, Kurt, and Big John. Karl and his girls are on the ground. And Kristin is serving us.

So back to the original question. What's our security? I've got to give credit to the church denomination I grew up in (CRC). They're big on roots. On what we believe. Early on as a grade schooler in catechism I learned that, "I am not my own, but belong both body (earth) and soul (heaven) to my Faithful Savior Jesus Christ". Because of that we have security here on earth. And assurance for after earth (eternity). And we say thank you for this gift by honoring God and blessing others. See you next week.