"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."
I have a beautiful painting in my prayer room, that was given to me many years ago by a fellow believer and it depicts a man. He looks very much like a farmer to me, with an old-fashioned paraffin lantern in his right hand and he is walking down a path at night.
We in South Africa, at the moment, are on a journey and for many of us we do not know exactly what the future holds. We are optimistic because our Lord Jesus Christ is an optimist, but the only way we're going to continue to walk along this path is by faith. 2 Corinthians 5:7 (NKJV), "For we walk by faith, not by sight."
You might ask, but how does one get faith? How does one get the paraffin to keep the lamp burning, so that we can see where we are walking? Well quite simply, it comes out of our agricultural manual (The Bible). Psalm 119:105 (NKJV) says clearly "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." When we hear The Word of God through spending time reading our Bible, then we get direction, strength and confidence.
We have seen so many miracles already take place in this Nation, even since the mass Christian prayer meeting, which took place in Bloemfontein on the 22 April 2017, where over one million South Africans; black/white/coloured and Indian came together on Wilda Als farm and prayed for God to intervene. Since then, we have seen many miracles, even though some would maybe say that they were coincidences, I don't believe that for a moment.
There's an old saying which goes like this, "When men work they work, but when men pray, God works." Prayer has become part of my daily life, especially recently with the horrific drought that we are experiencing. God will not forsake, or let us down. He does not make false promises, but what He does require from you and I is to believe. We must believe that He will come through for us and that will only happen when we start to obey His instructions and operate our farms according to His principles. That famous Scripture that I think every South African knows off by heart, 2 Chronicles 7:14 applies now more than ever before, "if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."
All He requires us to do is to believe. To fill that little Tilley lamp with Holy Spirit paraffin each morning and then walk one step in front of the other into the unknown, knowing full well that He goes before us.
I can honestly say to you I would rather not be in any other place at this time, then right here in our beloved South Africa. We are about to witness the hand of God moving sovereignly over this country like never before, but He does require his farmers to stand firm and not to allow fear to grip them. Fear is the weapon of the evil one himself. It causes confusion, irrational behavior and then we do things that really don't make sense. Let us be quite and at peace, because Jesus says in 2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV), "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."
May God bless you, as you continue to walk with Him with a sound mind.
Good farming
Angus Buchan
