I don't know if you all know this term around here since the soil is different. Okay, in many ways its better, but for a West Texas country boy or girl, this term means a lot! If you wanted to keep weeds out of a garden, you daily hoed a row; sometimes more than one. If the ground was hard and dry, or the weeds were stubborn, or there were just a whole lot of them; then it was a hard row to hoe. If your garden hoe was dull or it was very hot that day, then it was a hard row to hoe. You'd pick up that garden tool and look down that row. It seemed to go for miles! It was part of your chores: tend to the orphan livestock, feed the chickens, collect the eggs (avoid the Rooster), burn trash, and hoe a row. So, you hoed a row.
When someone would come and give you a break or a drink of cold water, how refreshing! Maybe they would help by sharpening your garden hoe or start working alongside you to get the job done faster. What a relief! The work still needed doin’ but the toil got a little easier.
Right now, there are families we know with a hard row to hoe. As a Christian family, we WILL be ready to help them. “What do I say?” “What can we do?” “I feel so helpless, but I want to do something.”
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6
We may not know what to do right at this moment but, with the good Lord’s help, we will when the time comes. Jesus said to channel everything we do through one emotion. I believe it.
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other. John 15:12-17
Grace and Peace,
Blan
