Good news for the countryside: Life’s journey with Jesus

​My father was a ‘meal man’ and for many years he drove a lorry for a local animal feed company. Driving around Kircubbin on a pastoral visit recently, my eye caught a sign on a tree that said ‘Cattle Crossing’. While there is nothing unusual about that, what was so pleasing to me was that the sign bore the name of the company that my dad had worked for, even though it is no longer in business. I stopped the car, took out my phone, and took a photograph to show my dad, who is now in his mid-nineties and long retired.

Looking back, it wasn’t unusual for me to spend days with him, either delivering meal to local farms, or making the journey to Belfast to get supplies from some of the large mills there. He also went to the docks to get loaded up with bags of raw material brought in by ships.

While times have brought change and some of those companies, like my dad’s are no more, what hasn’t changed is that much of the raw material used to make our animal feed is still imported. These ships sail many hundreds, if not thousands of miles, to deliver what we need to make animal feed. As the trawlers are reliant on the sea for their harvest, how reliant are farmers on those bulk carriers?

In the Old Testament Book of Psalms, Psalm 107:23-32 talks of those who go down to the sea in ships. But have you ever thought that your own life is like a ship? The purpose of a ship is not is not to rest in the ship builder’s yard, or stay safe in the calm waters of a harbour. Ships are built to be launched, and to be used for the purpose for which they were skilfully constructed.

Talking of ‘purpose’, have you ever asked yourself, ‘what is the purpose of our lives?’ Many people do, and seek answers in philosophy, religion, sport, pleasure, money, or in fame. But the real answer to this question is to be found in the Bible, and in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

His apostle, Peter, sums it up in John 6:68 when Peter asks Jesus, “‘Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.’” We are made for one thing and that is for God’s glory and His purpose. Are you seeking that? For it is only in that we will find true meaning, purpose, and satisfaction in life. So how do we find this? Well, if we think of those ships, each of them flies a flag to indicate to whom they belong. I wonder, what flag is flying from the vessel of your life?

Is it the flag that declares I am not my own, I have been bought with a price, the precious blood of Jesus (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)? If it is, you have trusted in Him and what He has done for you on the Cross at Calvary, that first Easter. You belong to Jesus and if we belong to Him, we declare our allegiance to Him.

For its only then that we will discover the purpose of our lives and understand the promise of the Lord Jesus - that He has come “‘…to give us life in all its fullness’” (John 10:10). Have you raised His flag on the ship of your life?

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Robin Fairbairn is part-time ministry co-ordinator with Portavogie Presbyterian Church in the Ards Peninsula in County Down and also works as ministry development officer with The Good Book Company. He lives in the country and has been farming every Saturday for more years than he cares to admit. If you would like to talk to someone about any of the issues raised in this article, please email Rev Kenny Hanna, PCI’s Rural Chaplain at [email protected] or call him on 07938 488 372.