Amysan

Richard told us a story about a rice farmer that I thought was kinda cool. 

A rice farmer had two stalks from his field, one in each hand.  To an untrained eye, they look identical.  To the professional, one was a rice stalk and the other was a weed – one had to strain very hard to see that the rice stalk had small grains of rice at the bottom where the rice grows while the weed stalk had none.  The rice farmer was asked how he manages to separate the weeds from the field.  He said it is actually very easy.  He allows both stalks to grow to a certain stage when they are both strong enough to sustain drastic change in environment.  The rice stalk will survive without water longer than the weeds can.  So the farmer will drain the rice fields until the weeds die off.  Shortly after that period of time, he will flood the fields so that the rice stalks can continue to grow. 

This speaks like a parable – something that Jesus might have taught.   The rice field is like the family of Christ followers – there are Christ followers whose roots run deep and there are Christ followers whose roots are shallow.  When hardships and suffering comes, the ones with shallow faith will perish and abandon the faith.  But the ones whose roots run deep will continue to grow and continue to follow Christ.  

I used to be one who thought that following Christ would mean that life would be easier. Growing up, I was surrounded by many mentors and peers at church who appeared to have the picture perfect life.  There was no pain and no suffering for them (at least at a surface level).  I attributed that to the fact that they had a strong relatoinship with God.   But as life unfolds for me, I am beginning to learn that hardships and trials in life test our faith and if we can weather the storms that our faith becomes stronger.  I guess this is true generally in life.  A marriage is easy if everything goes smoothly. But once conflict and disagreements arise, then it tests the couple’s love to see if they can overcome the trials.  I believe most married couples would say that the trials make their relationship stronger – and i believe the same is also true for friendships as well. 

Anyway, just something I wanted to remember.