Trust God, Not Your Idols

I am an oldest child. I am a planner and a goal-setter. I have big dreams and plans, and I know exactly how I am going to get there.

Then came the drought of 2021. The average rainfall on our North Dakota farm during the growing season is eighteen inches. This year we have had three inches, all in the month of May. Add to that a dry fall last year and no snow during the winter (Texas had more snow than we did!), and we were beyond dry. The US Drought Monitor placed our farm squarely in the “exceptional” category. I have never not wanted to be exceptional, except for this year.

All the data aside, I can tell you what it looks like. Dry, brown, crunchy, and bare.

Our farm practices regenerative grazing management, we move our flerd—our cows, sheep, and horses—often to avoid overgrazing and to keep fresh grass available through our grazing plan. But what about when the grass you have saved for grazing is brown and dry when it should be green and lush? Doubt and defeat start to creep in.

You see, I have a spreadsheet that forecasts ten years down the road what our sheep and cow numbers should look like and extrapolates the numbers of heifers and ewe lambs we will have each year to build the flerd, the numbers of steers and wethers we will have to sell each year. It also projects how much hay we will need through the winter in order to achieve those numbers. It estimates our profit and loss for both species each year. When I designed that template, I had no intention of putting in lower numbers. It was growth, upward and onward!

Then the drought hit.

My husband and I have a drought management plan—a plan we put into place when certain criteria are met, such as when we are using more grass than we should, we have too many animals for the grass remaining, or the price of hay to feed them over the winter is too high. And like a slot machine at the casino, this year we hit all three.

We calculated how many sheep and cows we could feed with the hay we could find and afford. Then we made difficult decisions about which cows and sheep stayed and which were sold.

Last week, we got our first of many truckloads of hay delivered from our “hay guys.” I almost cried at the sight. I told my husband, “I won’t take a deep breath until it is all here.”

And just like that, God hit me with a spiritual truth.

I had just prepared a sermon for the two churches I serve, titled “Naming Your Idols.” In that sermon, I quoted Matthew L. Kelley (from the devotional First), who said, “Place your faith in the one who remains after the idols have turned to dust.”

I would be lying if I said that during this horrible summer of heat and dust and oppression, I was calm, cool, and collected. I was not trusting God. I was trusting in my spreadsheets, in weather predictions of rain that never came, in the number of hay bales that would feed my livestock.

That first load of hay was my idol. I was trusting that hay to save my dreams for growing our flerd. Maybe you aren’t a farmer, but I bet you know what happens to hay when a cow or sheep eats it. It turns to manure. Not even dust, like Matthew Kelley said, but manure. I was putting my faith in something that turns to manure.

In Matthew, we see Jesus address a man who wants to be his disciple. He wants to be a part of the ministry, to help teach and heal. But he just has to do one thing first: “Another disciple said to him, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus told him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.’ (Matt. 8:21-22 NIV) Lest you think that Jesus is cold and heartless, he isn’t. Jewish custom at the time was to care for elderly relatives until their passing; there were no nursing homes or skilled care facilities. The man’s father probably wasn’t dead, but elderly. He was telling Jesus that he would be free to follow him when his family obligations were complete.

I told Jesus the same thing.

I’ll trust you, really trust you, when all the hay is here.

I’ll trust you, really trust you, if it rains enough to keep all my animals.

I’ll trust you, really trust you, if I don’t have to keep living in this dry, brown desert.

Friends, I had made hay my idol. I had trusted in my plans and spreadsheets, instead of trusting in the one who made the soil, grass, rain, livestock, and me.

And he replied, “Be still, and know that I am God;” (Ps. 46:10 NIV)

Annie Carlson is rooted like a turnip to the plains of North Dakota where she raises great food, large numbers of farm animals, and three free-range kids with her husband. You can find her with either a book or knitting needles in her hands as she dreams up her next adventure.

Photograph © Laurence, used with permission