All Around

It happens every now and again as I walk around or work on this farm which has been our home in these eight years of retirement.  What happens is that I run across something someone before me  has left on the ground.  I remember an old rusted gate hinge which showed up as it started breaking the surface of the ground down in the pasture where there is no gate.  On another day there was a long section of fence wire which I found just beneath the ground as I was pulling weeds from around a pecan tree.  And, only a few days ago as I was working in the blueberry patch up from the ground came a Bud Light bottle cap. 

I knew no one had enjoyed a beer where I was working for at least the past eight years.  Of course, I have not been here every minute and anything is possible, but it is more likely that someone long before we got here stood near the place I was kneeling opened a bottle and threw the cap on the ground.  While all these finds may not mean much to most folks, it reminds me that others have walked and tended this ground long before me.  It makes me want to look over my shoulder to see who might be watching me from the past.  And, it also makes me wonder what I might be leaving for someone of a still-to-come generation to find.

Life, like land, has a transient nature.  The Scripture teaches us to number our days and to remember that life is fleeting.  Where I have walked others have walked before me.  And some will walk after me.  It is the nature of our living.  And on those days when I look over my shoulder trying to see into the past, I am reminded to look ahead for glimpses of the great crowd of witnesses gathered in the heavenly place.  We are connected to both and both speak of who we are.