I’m not one to watch sports often, but like many Americans, we enjoyed the Super Bowl with some friends and good food on Sunday. Thanks to our host’s fancy cable TV setup, they could pause or fast-forward through game plays and commericals. We could re-watch memorable moments of both the game and the commercials, and skip the commercials (and half-time show…) we didn’t care to watch. Our hosts were an older couple who live on beautiful acerage in rural Alabama and even raise cows, so naturally, they–and the rest of us–were captivated by the “God Made a Farmer” commercial, watching it multiple times. In the midst of numerous beer ads and commercials for the latest and greatest products, this one stood out in stark contrast. Yes, it’s still a product–Dodge Ram–commercial, but at its heart, it appeals to the virtues of hard work and family and offers tribute to an often forgotten group of Americans who live the quiet, hardworking, farming life.
Yesterday, I read posts by multiple bloggers reflecting on the ”God Made a Farmer” ad, but Ann Voskamp’s post at A Holy Experience, ”God Made a Mother and You–So Farmer On!” was especially beautiful, since she lives the farming life. And it wasn’t just her comments or her farm and family photography, but her illustration of the beauty in faithfulness. She moves from “God Made a Farmer” to “God Made a Mother,” another unsung, quietly sacrificing person we all know…
“So God made a mother.
It had to be somebody willing to keep loving when it made no sense because that’s what love does.
Somebody who knew that patience is a willingness to suffer.
That joy is always possible because there is always, always something to be thankful for….
So God made a mother…” (Ann Voskamp).
From her own version of the ad for mothers, she reminds me of faithfulness in the small and ordinary, something I’ve been thinking of often. Culture doesn’t usually recognize the “people who do great things because of faithfulness in hidden things” (Voskamp).
The hidden faithfulness gets old and tiring. It’s easy to give up and feel like the repetitive sacrifice and laying down of selfishness will never make a difference, never bring fruitfulness.
But just like farmers plant seeds and trust for sun and rain and eventually see the literal fruit of their labor, so we will all see the fruit of our daily, ordinary faithfulness, if we can just keep planting and watering and waiting. In God’s bountiful grace, he enables us to be faithful, and He sees those seemingly unnoticed acts of faithfulness done for Him alone.
So take heart, remain faithful, look for ways to encourage and recognize the people who make those faithful sacrifices for YOU, and ”Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galations 6:9).
Here in the south it’s God, guns, football & then farming! Haha