Smith Rock Ranch, Terrebonne, OR
Hosea 10:12 GNT
Plow new ground for yourselves, plant righteousness, and reap the blessings that your devotion to me will produce. It is time for you to turn to me, your Lord, and I will come and pour out blessings upon you.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, “The plow is the most important agricultural implement since the beginning of history, used to turn and break up soil, to bury crop residues, and to help control weeds.” From its humble beginnings as a digging stick to the dozen or so styles of multiple farrow plows available today, it’s hard to imagine that one of the most revolutionary moments in plow history happened because of a failure. John Deere was born in 1804 in Rutland, Vermont. His father was lost at sea when John was four years old so he became a blacksmith apprentice. He proved to be very talented and inventive and eventually opened his own business. Unfortunately, one shop was lost in a fire, and then Vermont suffered a banking crisis that would eventually come to head in the Panic of 1837. But John would flee Vermont for Illinois before that. A report in the Rutland Herald explains, “The immediate inspiration [for fleeing] was being arrested for debt by a Leicester deputy sheriff on Nov. 7, 1836, and discovering after bailing himself out that there was a lien on his property. Debtor’s prison was a real possibility.”
In Illinois, he quickly discovered that there was more work than there were blacksmiths to do it! And the farmers in the Midwest were faced with a serious problem. The rich black prairie soil stuck to their rusted iron plows. Using a worn-smooth saw blade, he proved that polished steel was what was needed to slice through the sod. This led to an all steel polished one piece self-scouring plow share, an agricultural invention with a global impact. Today, John Deere & Co is in the top 100 of Fortune 500 companies featuring a wide range of tractors, agricultural, and lawn care equipment. If John had stubbornly planted his foot in Vermont instead of his plow in Illinois, would we even know his name? What surely must have felt like defeat at the time for this devoted and driven man, God used to impact the whole world. John truly plowed new ground and then reaped the blessings. Is God asking you to plow new ground? Is He asking you to return your focus to Him? What are you waiting for? Turn to the Lord and follow where his fresh furrow leads!
