Five Sayings of the Wise
I was reading some chapters in the Book of Proverbs a few weeks
ago. In the middle of Proverbs 22, the subheading says: “Thirty Sayings of the
Wise.” The sayings that follow contain wisdom from above.
I started thinking about the sayings that I have heard in other
contexts. Some more than others. All of them are/were associated with the
agricultural world — particularly the world revolving around our family farm.
So here are Five Sayings of the Wise — at least I heard them as such.
Did She Come From Together?
I was a teen-ager—maybe 14 or 15 years old. It was my job that
day to run the hay baler. We were baling hay for our neighbor, Bud Gibler. We
had done work for him quite a few times. He was a good neighbor. Bud is the one
who imparted this wise saying to me.
Once in a while, if there was too much hay for the baler to
handle at one time, the machine was designed to break a small bolt — we called
it a shear pin — so it would not cause major damage to the equipment. We kept
extra bolts or pins with us for this contingency. And it was actually a pretty
easy fix. After unclogging the baler, a new shear pin would simply be
installed.
On the day I heard this saying, the pin had sheared, the tractor was
stopped, and I had the tools out to fix it. In the middle of that process, Bud
drove up to where I was working, got off of his tractor, came over to me and
said, “What happened? Did she come from together?” Not sure why he assigned a
gender to the baler, but that’s what he said.
I had never heard this saying describe what most of us would say
instead: “What happened? Did it break?”
But there is not much wisdom in that run of the mill saying!
I have told this story countless times. I have often thought
about the wisdom in it.
That’s really what happened. It happened to the baler. It
happened to human beings. It happened to you and it happened to me. We have
come from together.
You see, when the world and people were created, we were
together. We were in fellowship with our maker. We were together with God. We
were together in our hearts and lives. Pure. No sin. We were together. It
worked.
Because of disobedience — sin — we have come from together. And
no matter what we do, we can’t get back together on our own. We need a fixer—a
savior. Jesus makes it possible for us to be whole again by his death on the
cross. We call his sacrifice an atonement—(at-one-ment). When we trust in what
Jesus has done for us, it is the fix for all of us who have “come from
together.”
You Gotta Stay in Your Seat
I was listening to a few farmers one day talking about hauling
grain. The destination of the semi-truck loads was at such a distance that it
took some time to make a round trip. The conversation centered on the
fact that the farmer had made four trips in one day. A question on everyone’s
mind was asked by someone, “How did you do that?” His answer was this next wise
saying: “You gotta stay in your seat!”
In his seat. At the wheel. That’s how it was accomplished. I
heard this bit of wisdom not too many years ago. I wished I had known it
several decades ago.
It was a hot day. I was cultivating very small bean plants in a
very big bean field — 40 acres. In order to do this without destroying the delicate
plants, I had to drive very slowly. I probably was only traveling one or two
miles per hour. Another neighbor once told me about the speed that was required
for this job. He said, (in another, less frequently heard saying,) “You will be
going so slow you’ll have to throw your hat on the ground to see if you are
moving!” The thing that made this task a particularly difficult one was that
the field was directly across the road from our house. Every few trips around the field, I would get off my seat and take a break for quite a few minutes at
a time. By not staying in my seat it took an extremely long time and was very
frustrating. In fact, I really don’t remember finishing this field. My dad may
have taken over and finished it.
How do you get things accomplished? By sticking with it. Keeping
at it. St. Paul imparted similar wisdom to his young friend, Timothy. He shared
this testimony in 2 Timothy 4:7: “I have
fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” My translation? He stayed in his seat!
Over Yonder
I heard this saying many times about many different subjects.
“Where did the Smith’s move? Over yonder.”
“Go over yonder and get those bales of hay for the cows.” “We’re going to go over yonder and check the
sows and pigs.” Most of the time this
saying was accompanied by an imprecise wave of the hand or a slight nod of the
head toward yonder.
The definition of yonder is “at some distance in the direction
indicated” or “a far distance.”
In those days there were a lot of places named “yonder.” They all
were real. They all were comprised of what was originally indicated. The
Smith’s did move over yonder. The bales of hay were located over yonder. And
the sows and pigs did need to be checked on because they were over yonder. The
promise of what was yonder was realized when we got there.
As I was thinking about this saying, the chorus to the old hymn,
“Mansion Over the Hilltop” came to mind:
I've got a
mansion just over the hilltop
In that bright
land where we'll never grow old
And some day
yonder we will never more wander
But walk on
streets that are purest gold
Over yonder — a bit fuzzy and imprecise now, but we’ll know and
embrace it when we get there.
If We Had Started with this
One, We Would Have Been Done a Long Time Ago
I heard this saying frequently. I said this saying frequently.
Let me tell you about it. We baled a lot of hay in the summer time. It was hot,
sweaty work. Sometimes we would handle around a thousand bales in a long
afternoon. Many of those bales were handled more than once. One of the
redeeming things of those days was that there were others working along side
each other. It took a team of people to do that much work.
When the last bale of the day was lifted off the wagon and put
away in the hay loft, someone would undoubtedly say, “If we had started with
this one, we would have been done a long time ago.”
Admittedly it was a corny, unrealistic joke — or saying.
But we laughed at it and celebrated the fact that the task was
finished. That last bale represented a lot of sweat and exertion. It
represented many hours—not just moving the bales, but the preparation of the
field, the love of the land, the livestock it would feed in the coming winter.
It also represented the fun of working together—often with neighbors. We didn’t
do that every day. The last bale also represented the fact that soon we would
all gather under the nearest shade tree, drink ice tea and eat cookies and
shoot the breeze. Stories and jokes would be told and retold.
Stephen Covey identified one of the habits of successful
people: “begin with the end in
mind.” Not sure if we understood all
that meant at the time, but wisely the vision of that last bale was on our
radar. The whole enterprise of making hay on a day like that was to get to that
last bale.
One other thing about this saying. If the last bale was thrown in
the barn or on the stack, it meant that the job was well done. We put all we
had into it.
The first part of Ecclesiastes 9:10 says this, “Whatever your hand
finds to do, do it with all your might...”
It took some might and muscle to put up that many bales in a day.
If we had started with that last one we would have been done a long time ago!
It Beats a Snowbank
It depended on the hay crop. Some cuttings (there were usually
three or four cuttings in one field in a summer) were high quality. Sometimes
there might be a few weeds in the hayfield. Sometimes the quality of the hay
was just not up to par. But it was baled up anyway.
On those occasions I heard this wise saying: “It beats a snowbank.”
Let me explain. The hay baled in the summer would be fed to the
cattle herd in the winter. We couldn’t predict it, but likely some of those
winter days would have several inches of snow on the ground. One of our
neighbors wrote about there being so much snow one winter day, it took them
until noon to get to the place where they could even begin to feed the cattle.
When there is nothing but snowdrifts and snowbanks in the
pastures and feedlots, the hay is essential. It was a matter of life and death
for the cattle.
And the wisdom of the saying is that the hay may not be the very
best quality—the prize bale at the county fair, but it beats a snowbank!
I think the wisdom in this applies to other areas of our lives.
We may complain that the material things we have may not be up to what we would
like for them to be, but it beats a snowbank.
Our job may be frustrating, but it beats a snowbank.
We may not be able to afford steak and lobster—only hamburger
helper, but it beats a snowbank.
Another aspect of this wise saying is that we should be content
with the bales we have—the ones that beat snowbanks. Again, these words from St
Paul: ...I have learned to be content
whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it
is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every
situation, whether well fed or hungry6, whether living in plenty or in want. I
can do all this through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:11-13)
