So God Made a Farmer

February 4, 2013 Nick Braschler

Many of you probably heard this Dodge commercial last night during the Superbowl, which used the 1978 speech called, “So God Made a Farmer” by Paul Harvey. It stuck a chord with me because of my family’s history in farming, but also because of the farmers that I get to serve each week here at Simmons. Here’s the speech if you missed it:

God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a farmer. God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board." So God made a farmer. God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year,' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from an ash tree, shoe a horse with hunk of car tire, who can make a harness out hay wire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. Who, during planting time and harvest season will finish his 40-hour week by Tuesday noon and then, paining from tractor back, put in another 72 hours." So God made the farmer. God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bales, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-comb pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the leg of a meadowlark." It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed, and brake, and disk, and plow, and plant, and tie the fleece and strain the milk. Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh, and then sigh and then reply with smiling eyes when his son says that he wants to spend his life doing what Dad does. "So God made a farmer."

From the very beginning we were given the responsibility to care for and enjoy all of God’s creation. For any of you who are farmers, whether professionally or as a hobby, thanks for your hard work and efforts. I rode in the tractor with a good friend of mine recently during early morning chores and I asked him, "What motivates you to work as hard as you do?" He expressed the satisfaction and purpose he finds in being able to feed so many families, including his own, by taking care of God’s creation. It wasn't work, it was a calling. That same desire is within me as well, and I hope to be able to have a place to farm and raise my son some day soon.

I hope that you feel the same way about what we do at Simmons as well. Whether you are at the farms, plant, or office, your work is putting food on a families plate tonight. That’s a real special calling and such a significant way to invest a work week.

So thanks for all that you do. I really appreciate it and so do the thousands and thousands of people that we feed each day. God bless and have a great week.

24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.

Genesis 1:24-26, 29-30