AND ALL THE TATERS UNDER THOSE HILLS

My pastor preached the house down this past Sunday. So, so good--encouraging, uplifting, faith-building, God-glorifying--He always makes me think which I love but he made me smile, reminisce and think when he said "God owns the cattle on a thousand hills and all the taters under those hills. 

 It took me back to the late 1940's--to a simpler time--a time when my aunt and I (she was 5 months younger than I) would go behind my grandfather (her father) and pick up potatoes that he had unearthed with his trusty ole mule and plow.

I remember his booming voice when he would yell instructions to the mule--"gee" and "haw" meant right and left.  Many of the working mules in those days understood these vocal instructions and would turn the right way at the end of a row with barely a tug on the lines.  

From an article I read:

"Instead of pulling hard on reins, 

experienced farmers often guided the animal mostly with their voice.

A well-trained mule knew those commands so well that it could turn almost automatically.

The words themselves are centuries old — 

farmers in both United States and United Kingdom 

used them long before tractors became common." 

My grandfather’s mule obeyed so willingly that it reminded me of Psalm 32:9:

“Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle...”

The picture is of an animal that must be pulled and forced instead of willingly responding to its master. 

I cannot help but wonder if that is how God desires to guide me. Do I respond willingly to His gentle nudges and quiet leading, or does He sometimes have to pull the reins a little tighter to get my attention? Something worth thinking about.

As Christians, the Lord longs to lead us with love, wisdom, and gentle direction. The closer we walk with Him, the more sensitive we become to His voice. 

Obedience born out of trust is always sweeter than obedience forced by struggle. 

Perhaps one of the marks of spiritual maturity is learning to follow His leading willingly, quickly, and with a trusting heart.

Perhaps that is part of the lesson hidden in ‘all the taters under those hills.’ 

So much of what God is doing in our lives is underground work — unseen growth, hidden provision, quiet transformation. 

The mule did not have to understand the whole field; it simply learned to trust the voice guiding it row by row. 

Maybe obedience is often like that for us. 

We may not always see what God is growing beneath the surface, but we can trust the One leading us.

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