Are you someone who has found Grays Farm a peaceful place? Let me explain why.
About 25 years ago dad shared something with me that I doubt he told many people about because he was a humble man who found nothing remarkable about what he shared.
Dad spent many hours of his life driving his tractor up and down his fields, mainly slowly & carefully to keep a straight line. As dad drove he prayed. Ploughing, cultivating, preparing the ground, spreading fertiliser, planting crops, weeding, spraying, harvesting, as he drove up and down he prayed. He prayed for the seed as he planted it, for its protection & growth for the sun & the rain. He also prayed for those who would pick the crops and enjoy the fruits of his labour & God’s growth & provision; he prayed they would not only find good wholesome food to nourish their bodies but also find their Creator to nourish their mind & spirit too.
So if you are one of those who have knelt in the fields to seek strawberries and also found God, that’s why; there was more prayer spread in those fields than there was fertiliser!
Were you one of the hundreds, no thousands of children who over the years dad has shown round his farm on one of his ‘Walks & Talks’? As dad shared his child like enthusiasm for the crops and their Creator perhaps a seed was planted in you too. Dad would never have thought of it as trying to preach or plant spiritual seeds; he did not need to because to meet dad was to meet Jesus too. Dad would not agree with that statement, he did not see himself as ‘super spiritual’ in any way & indeed he was not; he had a simple, yet profound, faith in The Creator but that permeated all he did & was a bit like Blackpool rock.
Well, dad will now have met his Creator. And received his “Well done, good and faithful servant” and I believe will have been genuinely surprised to have done so because he saw nothing remarkable in who he was or what he did. He just shared his love of his God in Jesus by sharing himself.
John Hall ( Donald's son in law)