A Tractor Accident

A story of a tractor accident really touched me this week.  I have included a link to it below. The accident described there (a tractor flipping over backwards) is a common one with older, smaller tractors.  I have personally known it to happen with several people - a man in my community, a cousin on my father's tractor - it can have deadly results if you are not quick to respond.  The man I just mentioned died, my cousin jumped and lived.  The same accident almost happened to me on the same tractor that my cousin flipped.  I still credit God with helping me get my foot on the clutch just in time.

God does work in our problems and pains to reveal himself in this world.  That is a hard truth for us to realize because we so often think - unthinkingly - that God is here to reward us.  Yes, he does reward us, here and in heaven, but often his greatest work is revealing himself.  The man in my community who died in the tractor accident was not being punished.  My cousin was not being rewarded.  I was not "good" enough to be spared from an accident.  God works to reveal himself.

It is the same truth that we will look at Sunday in Jesus coming to the pools of Bethesda and healing a man who had suffered for 38 years.  It was not a reward for his suffering so long.  It was a revelation for all of us who suffer.  He is still the same Jesus capable of changing our lives in an instant.

Let me encourage you to watch the news report from the link below, it will not take long.  I don't know if this family really knows God or not.  But listen for what the older sister says about what she told herself repeatedly as she attempted to lift a 3,000 pound tractor.  Watch carefully, it is just a brief mention, but may point to a more power meaning.  Look at how it seems God revealed himself in this situation.  And then ask yourself, "How is he revealing himself to me?"

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2013/04/10/dnt-or-daughter-lift-tractor-off-dad.kgw

For the journey...

Tim