Good Land
I have noticed in my dealings with ranchers and farmers that no two agree on how to manage their land and resources. I find this kind of odd because, when you talk to them, every last one of them knows for sure that they do it the right way. How can they all be right if they don’t agree? But in spite of their independent attitude, there are two things they all agree on.
First, all ranchers and farmers agree that there is a scarcity of good land in this world. I remember one rancher in the Hulett area lamenting to me that his family owned, and paid taxes on, about 5,000 acres of which 4,500 were scenery. According to statistics from around the world, only 1.5 billion of a total of 37 billion acres on this earth is tillable land (~4%). With that in mind, I guess my rancher friend, with 10% workable land, was doing quite well!
Second, all ranchers and farmers agree that agricultural land is precious and we must do whatever it takes to make more. If you go to the Netherlands, you can see the old windmills pumping water off the land to make their famous polders. If you fly over the western U.S., you can see green circles indicating the presence of center-pivot irrigation systems in the dry land. If you drive through southern Minnesota, when the land is not frozen, you cannot help but notice trenching equipment installing more drain tiles. And if you look at pictures of Southeast Asia, the terraces on the sides of mountains filled with the lush green rice plants are memorable. All of these great works of human ingenuity attest to the fact that good land is precious and we must do whatever it takes to make more.
We, the church, need to learn from ranchers and farmers. We need to first realize that there is a scarcity of good land in this world. That is, there are very few who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and would thus qualify as “good land.” Unlike mapping land, surveying hearts to analyze true relationships with Christ is next to impossible. General estimates say that somewhere between 3.8% and 7.6% of the world’s population are evangelical (i.e. believers in the good news).
Second, we need to realize that “good land” (i.e. believers in Jesus Christ) are precious and we need to do whatever it takes to make more. We need to use our spiritual guidance and human ingenuity to reclaim lost souls from being flooded by hopelessness, scorched by the devil, saturated with immorality, and being desolate, clinging to the false hopes of human society. We need to go out of our way to plant seeds of the word of God in every environment and among every race and age of people throughout our world.
“Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” Matthew 13:3-8