Plow On

My Father,

Your plowshare is digging deep, pushing down past the loose soil to the places tight and dark. Your blade slices through the packed earth, sparking against the stones buried deep beneath the turned surface.

And the stones are buried deep. But your blade finds them—lifts them up and turns them over and they glint in the light. I bend to pick them up. They are heavy and solid.

Stones in my field.

From the ribbon edge of the plot the field looks good. Narrow, fairly straight furrows. But you, O Lord, are not concerned with how something looks. Appearances are not the true indicators of what lies beneath.

Only the plowshare will turn over what lies buried under the layers.

With the pray-er I too ask, “Plough deep in me, great Lord, heavenly Husbandman, that my being may be a tilled field, the roots of grace spreading far and wide, until you alone are seen in me…” *

Spread your grace in me, O Lord. May its tendrils reach far and long and deep. Let this field be tilled far deeper than just the surface inches.

Use a longer, wider plowshare. Find the stones. Unearth them and show me how to remove them from my field. Don’t allow me to become daunted or dismayed by the number or the size of them. I want my field to please you. I want you to count it as usable soil. Do whatever you have to do for this to be so.

Plow on. Plow on.

Amen



*The Deeps from The Valley of Vision.