Country Knight

Today was my second day working at the John Deere plant and I got a “tour” of the facility. Becides the fact that the place is huge and can easily put out over 2000 units a day at peak I noticed something interesting about the process that these machines go through. The pieces are welded, painted and assembled with care by the workers until finally this large pile of parts has become this shiny new tractor justas we are molded by God.

This got me to thinking how God has made us who we are. Not only did he stitch us together in our mothers womb but he also molds and shapes us after our birth through the situations we endure. The circumstances and situations in our lives are just like the pieces used to build the tractors and God is the worker. The dirty grey and useless parts are carefully cleaed and made attractive redeeming the ugly things in our lives and using them for good. Then these pices are put together in the right order and assembled with care ensureing everything is just as it should be to make the final assembled product. Just as He orders our circumstances guiding them into their exact perfect order to build us whole and complete. Granted it takes a matter of minutes to make a tractor and a lifetime to mold us there are similatities. Remember today that there is a reason for the season that you are going through and God is using this time in yor life , good or bad, for His glory and to shape and mold you into who yoy ate supposed to be. We can not begin to understand His plan for us and we must trust Him knowing that He is in control and knows what He is doing even if it doesn’t seem so.

Last year was a stressful and faith testing one. After loosing a child and my job a month apart in 2008 and with no real job all 2009 despite several interviews and countless resumes sent out it was easy to become discouraged. In December we realized that we needed to stop sitting around and asking God to show us His will we needed to just get up and make decisions as wisely as possible. We decided that we must trust in Him and seek Him as we made these decisions.

This process started in December of last year actually. We were upside down on our 2007 Nissan Quest due to a ridiculously long term. We were easily filling up the 7 seats and the van was becoming more and more mechanically unstable. We knew we needed a new van but refused to get in the hole and were not going to do it unless we REDUCED our debt load. That was the main drive really was the reduction of debt. In December God provided us with the opportunity to trade our van for a used 2008 15 passenger van. This opportunity looked promising but as the day went on at the dealership it became obvious that it was not going to be within the terms we set as limits for ourselves. Then on Christmas Eve the dealership called and we were able to get the van on out terms. So God provided the vehicle we so desperately needed for our family.

At this time I had interviewed for the position at John Deere but was not sure that I was going to get it due to not hearing back from the interview. We decided in the end of December to put our house up for sale. We have a good ammount of equity in the home and we wanted to use it to get out of debt as much as possible and reduce our house payments and move into something less expensive. We did not care if it was a step up or not we just wanted cheaper. More on that later.

Come the new year and I am sure that the John Deere job had not happened because it was too long and they had said they wanted someone to start at the first of the year. Then one day I get a call from them wanting to do another interview that day. I had the interview at 1 and at 7 I get a call offering me the position. This is a HUGE answer to prayer and the fact that it is a position in my field working for a company that is in my top 2 for companies I want to work for is amazing. God’s hands were in it.

During this time my Land Rover was beginning to concern me some. It was still running but was difficult to start at times and with the new job it was becoming a great concern. Then I was contacted about doing a possible trade for a Ford F-350 Diesel Dually (my dream truck, Crew Cab to boot). I met the owner and explained the issues with the Land Rover and what I was told it needed and approximately what it would cost to fix. He was willing to trade so we did. God provided me with this wonderful truck that I had always wanted and it was of no doing of mine.

Now back to the house… We went looking at houses. As I said earlier we wanted cheaper, we didn’t care if it was smaller or not. As we look our Realtor finds us a place to look at in our price range that is close to the John Deere factory. This home sits on nearly 2 acres and have 5 bedrooms and could easily be finished off into more. We have always wanted a nice hobby farm and this home has the space and even to root cellar to boot. Our house is still for sale and we are not moving yet or anytime in the foreseeable near future but we know that God has lead us in these places.

God is good and He is our guide. We must make the first step in faith that He will be there to guide us. We sat around too long waiting for a letter or something telling us what He wanted us to do instead of taking the first real step and having faith that our decisions would be guided. Without that first step we would not have looked at vans, or put our house up for sale, or been prepared to trade the Rover. God is good and He will provide we must make that step of faith and allow Him to come into our lives and guide our path. I encourage you to take that step if you haven’t already. It is well worth it.

Many of you have been coming to my site over the past few years and notice a big change. I lost all of my previous posts when trying to update the version of the blogging platform that I was using so I decided to switch to wordpress. I apologize for that but now Country Knight has a new look.

The look may change more and more as the time progresses and I get more time to fiddle with it. I started a new job today working at the John Deere factory near my home. This is a major answer to prayer for my family and I thank all of you that have been praying for us through the rough waters that we faces this past year and half or so. God is good and He provides for all our needs.