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This teaching of Christ was bought back to me in a recent conversation with a retired farmer who had
been a pioneer in his field. He was commenting on the changes he had noticed over the many years, not
only in the methods and technology, but in the attitudes of other farmers, neighbours etc. He noted that as
a young boy on the land with his father, they started with nothing but a will to make it, and all their
neighbours for miles around, were in the same boat. All were equal, had nothing in material things, and
because of this, each were prepared to lend to each other the things that they did have and to help each
other, and more importantly, to ask each other for help. Because of this, a close relationship developed
and they seemed to all be blessed and benefited by this attitude. These blessings were granted them
because they were obeying Christ’s commandments. Rev. 22:14. “Blessed are they that do his
commandments.” As these blessings multiplied, he said everyone became more independent and acquired
many farm products, even to the extent of keeping up with the Jone’s attitude. Slowly came the attitude
that “I don’t need any help”, and as a result no one fulfilled the first part of our text. No one asked
anymore and even worse, even though there were times when things could have been lent, for fear of
being turned away, people forgot how to ask. Because of this simple break down to Christ’s
commandments, attitudes changed and it was only in extreme hardships of drought, fire, flood, dear times,
and calamities, that neighbours were drawn together.
When we reflect on this, no matter what our station in life is, we probably can all relate to this. We can all
remember some time in our life when we really needed something, but because of pride, we would not ask
to borrow it from someone else. Or perhaps we had made up our mind before asking, that we would be
refused and we were not going to give anyone the satisfaction of refusing us. We also begin to think of our
possessions as ours, and not something we were allowed to obtain or more correctly on loan from God,
and anyway, what if the borrower does not return it? Of course, God will have the final say in such
matters as in Psalm 37:21-22. “The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again: but the righteous showeth
mercy, and giveth. For such as be blessed of him shall inherit the earth and they that be cursed of him
shall be cut off.” This independent attitude in our natural life, can also lead us to adopt the same attitude in
our Spiritual life. We begin to also break other commandments of our Lord. Matt. 7:7. “Ask and it shall be
given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.” We begin to forget to even ask
of the Lord His blessings. Matt. 11:28. “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will
give you rest.” We think we can go it alone.
In the world we live to-day, there is one possession or blessing that we have that we should consider in
light of our text, and be prepared to ask, to borrow from others, and be prepared to lend to others, and that
is TIME. As married couples, we must lend and be prepared to ask for time one to another; as parents, we
must be prepared to give this time to our children; as teenagers, we must share our time with our parents
and friends. We see many lonely people in the world, we must all be prepared to lend some of our time to
those, and if we feel alone, we must be prepared to ask for time. We can lend time to the sick, the
sorrowing, those that are distressed in any way. If we become more conscious in our lives and start with
time on loan, we will soon find other things follow and before long, we will be once again living by the
text, and once again experiencing that better feeling as the old farmer remembered in days gone, by, and
most importantly, we will find we are giving more time to our Lord and this will not go unblessed.