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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, one of my favorite t-shirts is a blue one that looks like the front of the TARDIS, and I believe if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday Derek shares a story about a farmer and a sailor.
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My name is Derek Olsen and this is stuff I learned yesterday.
When it comes to making choices in my life I sometimes feel like I am in the drivers seat and fully in control of everything that is happening. Other times I feel totally out of control, like I’m in the back seat watching the car that is my life run off the road and into a ditch.
There are days when it all goes my way and days that I would rather forget ever happened. I struggle to makes sense of my own free will and the hand that life has dealt me. I’ve got my own control issues, but that’s a topic for another day.
Today I’d like to tell you two stories. Two stories that illustrate what The Sailor and The Famer have in common with each other. We’ll see if we can’t shed some light on the battle between free will and being tossed around in a river of predetermined circumstances.
Imagine with me the first person that attached sails or sheets or whatever he used to a boat. Everyone must have thought he was crazy.
“You can’t control the wind, how do you know you will be able to make it back to the shore! You are wasting your time, what if there is a storm or no wind at all?” The people must have said.
Surly the first person to try to sail a boat had doubts of his own. In the back of his mind he must have thought there was a chance he would be blown off the end of the Earth.
Now imagine with me the first farmer.
Good lord, just think about it. Some fool tilling the soil and planting seeds and then what? Waiting around for it to rain.
Everyone else must have said, “You can’t control the weather, how do you know your efforts will be rewarded? You are wasting your time. What if there is a late freeze or a mid-summer drought?”
In both cases, the people were right. A sailor can’t control the wind and a farmer can’t control the rain. I’ll bet these facts of nature were considered and even a little discouraging for the first sailor and the first famer.
But history shows that the naysayers and even the facts of nature didn’t stop them from trying.
History also shows that things turned out pretty good for the sailor and the farmer. Not bad for a group of dreamers who weren’t in control of the circumstance surrounding them.
While everyone else was relying on chance and luck for survival, the sailor and the famers took a leap of faith. They both tried blending in with the uncontrollable forces of nature rather than giving up and believing that there is no chance of success.
Well what can we learn from the sailor and the farmer’s leap of faith?
Perhaps there is a give and take when it comes to what one can control and the uncontrollable. Maybe it’s more that giving and taking, maybe it’s cooperation and collaborating. Imagine that, the uncontrollable cooperating with those who take a leap of faith. Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Almost sounds foolish.
So what do the sailor and the farmer have in common?
The sailor can’t control the speed or direction of the wind, or if it even blows at all.
The farmer can’t control the rain or the amount of sunshine that falls on his crops.
In fact, the sailor knows best the he can’t control the wind because he is the one out there in it and yet he is the one leaving the harbor everyday.
The farmer knows best that he can’t control the rain and the sunshine. After all he’s the one out there in the field everyday and yet he is the one working the hardest, planting seeds to grow food to feed his family.
A person who relies on faith for their very survival runs the risk of looking like a fool, and for good reason. However, stepping out in faith into a world we can’t fully control or even fully understand can give us everything we have ever wanted, needed, or desired.
Relying on a little bit of faith can be a humbling but rewarding experience.
I’ve done it many times myself and so have you.
So, lets set sail on a ship full of fools, and let plant seeds with the doubtful famer. Taking that leap of faith and blending in with the uncontrollable just might get us everything we have ever needed.
My name is Derek Olsen and this is Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday, I would be grateful if you’d leave a review in iTunes.
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