{"id":307,"date":"2020-11-10T16:27:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-10T21:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=307"},"modified":"2020-12-09T19:04:51","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T00:04:51","slug":"keeping-our-hand-on-the-plow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2020\/11\/10\/keeping-our-hand-on-the-plow\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping Our Hand on the Plow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Earlier this year, a commentator on a morning TV sports talk show suggested it was time for a veteran NFL quarterback to test the free agent market.

Assessing the strains of the player\u2019s relationship with his current team, the commentator said, \u201cIt\u2019s like a marriage.  It\u2019s run its course.\u201d 

That seems an apt summary of our culture\u2019s half-hearted commitment to the notion of commitment. 

We live in the midst of widespread acceptance of the idea that if your job is disappointing, if your family is holding you back, if your love life isn\u2019t bringing you all the joy you deserve, maybe those relationships have run their course.  If previous generations viewed life as a set of responsibilities, more recent generations tend to see existence as a series of adventures to be pursued.  And if my current obligations are making painful demands, maybe it\u2019s time to test the free agent market. 

Americans are currently wrestling with a question that wouldn\u2019t have occurred to most of our grandparents: If it doesn\u2019t make me happy, why should I be committed to anything at all?<\/em>

The answer is voiced by the mechanic in those old Fram Oil Filter commercials: \u201cYou can pay me now, or pay me later.\u201d 

There\u2019s nothing easy about parenting.  It drains our time, our money, and our energy.  But if we don\u2019t make genuine sacrifices in the present moment \u2013 figuring out how to home-school our kids, walking with them through adolescent heartaches, enduring their complaints that we are ruining their lives \u2013 our children will suffer.  Unless we<\/u><\/em> experience pain now, they<\/u><\/em> will experience much greater pain later \u2013 the pain of being woefully unprepared to thrive in our rapidly changing world. 

Heartfelt commitment, in other words, is often a gift we give to future generations. 

Social commentator Fareed Zakaria remembers reading about a South African judge who came to speak to American college students.  Coming from a nation in the throes of life-and-death issues \u2013 putting an end to the policy of apartheid, wrestling with forgiveness for those who had committed high crimes \u2013 she was startled to discover that U.S. newspapers chiefly addressed superficial issues.   \u201cShe concluded,\u201d Zakaria writes, \u201cby fervently hoping that one day her country would be normal enough to have its papers filled with trivia.\u201d

John Adams famously wrote during the Revolution, \u201cI must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.  Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.\u201d

Pay me now or pay me later. <\/em>

One of the best reasons to do today what seems particularly hard is that it has the power to provide a better tomorrow for those who follow.

But there\u2019s an even better reason. 

Jesus calls us to a life that author Eugene Peterson describes as \u201ca long obedience in the same direction.\u201d  When pressed by wannabe disciples, Jesus seems to go out of his way to make it clear that following him will never be easy or comfortable.  

\u201cNo one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God,\u201d he says (Luke 9:62).  In the agricultural world of the first century, \u201cputting your hand to the plow\u201d was a way of saying, \u201cI mean business.\u201d  Plowing a field was hard work.  As every farmer knew, \u201clooking back\u201d was a coded way of admitting, \u201cI really wish I was doing something else.\u201d 

But isn\u2019t Jesus the one who talks about his Father\u2019s unshakable love, welcomes outcasts and losers, and extends his mercy to people who fall flat on their faces?

Yes. 

But after such gifts of Extreme Grace, this is what comes next:  If we\u2019re ready to align ourselves with Jesus, we must put our hands to the plow and keep looking straight ahead. 

Life will always involve challenges that will tempt us to look somewhere else for better happiness providers. 

But God promises that what we choose to endure in the present moment will open doors to a lifetime of better tomorrows. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, a commentator on a morning TV sports talk show suggested it was time for a veteran NFL quarterback to test the free agent market. Assessing the strains of the player\u2019s relationship with his current team, the commentator said, \u201cIt\u2019s like a marriage.  It\u2019s run its course.\u201d  That seems an apt summary of our culture\u2019s half-hearted commitment to… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[93,13],"class_list":["post-307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-commitment","tag-resilience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions\/309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}