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Missionary work is like seed planting. You plant and wait. Some crops produce much fruit and some never even grow. Truck painting was never like that. I would paint a couple hundred truck each day in my GM heyday and by the end of the day there were, surprise, 200 trucks in the yard. I got used to that mentality. Paint two hundred and you get two hundred. Missionary seed planting is not at all like that, plant two hundred spiritual seeds and you might get two, or none. Sunday was a rare occasion for me. I was able to plant and see a harvest in the same day. Talk about a farmer's dream (or a missionary's dream too for that matter). We were in Caseville, Michigan last Sunday, ever been there? A Michigander would look at his or her left hand and point to the left point at the top of the thumbnail and say, "That's where Caseville is." Caseville is a tiny town that often burgeons with summer tourists and is virtually abandoned in the winter. One restaurateur told me, &

I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content . This was Paul's exortation to the believers in Philippi. Interestingly enough he wrote it from a Roman prison, probably chained to a Roman soldier. It wouldn't have been the easiest place to be content. The English sentence, as you can see, is only twelve words long but this tiny lesson speaks volumes. I have learned It goes without saying (though here I go) that Paul had an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. That relationship had not kept him from sadness, hurt, danger, or death. But it had helped him to understand that dealing with difficulties was a learned skill. We have all heard of the school of hard knocks. Paul understood that those knocks came from a divine source, the hand of his all loving Father. Discovering the mind of Christ will take eternity. Learning how to deal with difficulty in my own walk is a daily application of the knocks that He sends my way. I cannot always understand why