Do What You Love, and Starve

T.S.Smith, Bridgeville, DE

As we had been to the festival many times before, we were looking for something completely different to do.  The orchard store had offered tours of its processing plant in the past, so we headed in that direction.  No plant tours that day, but we jumped at the opportunity to go on an “orchard tour”.  Looking at apples growing sounded only moderately interesting, but we knew the kids would enjoy the hay ride.

A gentleman in his fifties packed us up with little conversation, and we headed down the road sitting on our hay bales.  I wondered what the “tour” would be like, and speculated it may simply be a quiet ride through the orchards.

We made our way across the highway and eventually to a turn-off leading into the orchard.  The driver bounced us down a stretch of dirt road and then stopped the tractor and turned off the engine.  It was only then that he introduced himself.  The man who I thought was just a farm hand was in fact one of the brothers who own the orchard. 

He explained that his great grandfather had started the business over a hundred years ago.  He pointed out the modest house he lived in, and the old broken down chicken houses in which the family had at one time grown Delmarva’s favorite bird.  He mentioned that back in the day, there was a small residence built right in the center where the caretaker would stay. 

He spoke of the pride his family took in making a living from farming this land, especially for such a long period of time.  He told us about irrigation methods the company had been using for years which were ahead of their time, and how they had always been careful not to contaminate the small stream which made its way through the farm and eventually dumped into the Chesapeake Bay.  The love this man had for the land and his farm was obvious.

I recall hearing a commercial for this very orchard, T. S. Smith & Sons, as a child in the 1960s.  I had never been to the orchard growing up, as it was all the way on the other side of the county.  Mr. Smith and I discussed the commercial, and he mentioned that a few years ago he had tried to get a copy of it without success.  I told him that when I was young, the only reason we ever came through this part of the county was if we were going over the Bay Bridge.  He said I should have told him that the only reason we came was to buy their apples.  I agreed.

At our last stop in the orchard, we were allowed to pick our own apples.  I picked three, and ate two.  One of our sons picked a dozen.  With all the apples our family picked, it easily covered the small fee we had paid for our ride.

The tour was a huge success for our family - one of those things that everybody enjoyed.  The thing that most impressed me was the longevity of the family business, and the pride and pleasure this man took in showing us his farm.  He had succeeded in building a rapport with us in the brief time we were together.  I wondered about the possibility of our children perhaps getting summer jobs at the store.

I thought to myself, "this farmer must be an illustration of some saying", but I couldn’t recall the precise wording of it.  A few minutes on the internet led to the quote - “Do what you love, and the rest will follow”.  This sounded slightly better than another quote - “Do what you love, and the money will follow.”  “Do what you love, and starve”, while funny, made a good point.  All these quotes were in the context of making a good decision about how to spend your days, specifically in how to make a living.

Then I found yet another one which caught my attention.  The context was also someone trying to find just the right career.  The commentator wrote “Do NOT what you love: do what you ARE".  This twist on the other ideas was taking into account that there are all kinds of things we love to do, but those things don’t always translate into income.   Her suggestion was essentially to do what you are geared to do.  I suppose if you combined the best of these various thoughts, you could end up with “Do what you are, and the rest will follow.”  Yea, that sounded pretty good to me.

Perhaps my farmer had stumbled into this pattern of living.  He certainly seemed to be “doing what he was”, and seemed very content in “the rest” that followed.  It was a refreshing thing to see.

While these quotes were aimed towards vocation, there is a more general across-the-board application in the life of the believer.  “Do what you are”, if carried out in the correct context, is the life believers are called to live.  It is the “what you are” part that causes all the grief. 

According to 2 Corinthians 5:17, when we come to Christ, we become “new creatures”.  That’s relatively easy to swallow.  But 2 Corinthians 4:11 very boldly says “For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” 

If we believe this and walk in it, then “doing what we are” should involve allowing Christ to be manifested in our mortal flesh.  But what if I was actually a dirty rotten scoundrel at one point in my life, and I'm still carrying around some of that baggage?  We know we have no license to behave in such a way, no license to “be who we are” in that context.  As the first part of 2 Cor 4:11 explains, The Lord intends to deal with those things of the flesh.  As He does, and that flesh is put to death, we see less of our flesh, and more of Christ manifested.

We often live under the misunderstanding that “what we are” are miserable sinners which God desires to fix up over time.  So we spend our lives focused on all those things we see which are in need of repair.  And we live in a constant state of asking The Lord to change us, never satisfied with where He has brought us thus far.

Certainly He does intend to do a work in our hearts.  But it is The Holy Spirit Who will be faithful to deal with that flesh. Perhaps I need to spend less time on worrying about His work, and more time on “doing what I am.”  What I am is a vessel for the Life of Christ.  The rest will follow.

After all, we aren’t the broken down old chicken houses of the orchard, we are the trees.  And the fruit we bear is Christ.

©Brent A. Timmons 2011