Called Out

There is farm in Yorkshire, England called "Slot Hill Farm".  In the 1960's the M62 Motorway was being built in that area, and in stead of moving the farm the built the expressway around it,  The west bound traffic goes on one side of the farm and the east bound traffic goes on the other.  According to local legend, the farmer was too stubborn to sell his land and move his farm, but the family tells a different story.  They say that the farmer, a man named Ken Wild, was a pretty mild mannered fellow.  It turns out that there was a geologic issue in the bedrock under the farm and it was easier to go around it.  But the legend was born.

Here is a picture of the farm.

And here is the aerial view from Google Earth

I have seen interviews with Farmer Wild and his granddaughter describing life on a farm in the middle of an expressway.  Farmer Wild acknowledged the noise from the traffic, but said it was very quiet in the house and mostly you are concerned with the business of running a farm.  His granddaughter, Kimberly said that growing up she was more interested in the sheep.

I think that there is a lesson here for all of us.  The world is a pretty busy place and it is easy to get caught up in the mix.  We can get pulled this way and that by the traffic of life.  But the Slot Hill Farm is a reminder that in the middle of the business that there can be peace.  We can teach ourselves to ignore the distractions of the world and focus on the matters at hand.

In the Bible, in the twelfth chapter of the book of Mark there is a story that on the surface is about paying taxes.  Jesus tells his disciples to "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and Give to God what is God's"  If we think about this story  a bit, we could easily read it as saying, "leave to this world the things of this world and reserve for God the things that are God's."

As Christians we need to be in the world but not of the world.  God has called us out of the world in a way that part of us is always with Him.  And while we will never be fully rid of the distractions of the world, we can still keep our focus in the important matters at hand,

Watch this video from Pastor Chris,

Life can be the farm in the middle of the freeway.  There can be distractions all around us but we must not get caught up in it all.  It is our job to feed the sheep.