The Color Green

So this past week I had to drive six hours (well, seven, including the delays at the borders) one way through Canada and New York for a business trip. The drive through southern Ontario and western New York is very similar to the drive back to my hometown of Champaign, Illinois, the drive back to my alma mater of Purdue, and similar to the drive to Waterloo, Iowa, where I interned with John Deere. During my time in Iowa, I often listened to the music of Rich Mullins on my way in to work. Most folks know of Rich Mullins as the 1980's version of Chris Tomlin, writing praise anthems sung often, maybe too often, in modern churches. But some of his other works are simply sublime - "52:10", a piano driven song with the words from the verse from Isaiah, and "Creed", the Apostle's Creed set to the sounds of the hammer dulcimer. On our way back, on the 401 in Canada, my iPod shuffled to another one of my favorite Rich Mullins songs, "The Color Green." The lyrics of the chorus are as follows:

Be praised for all Your tenderness by these works of Your hands
Suns that rise and rains that fall to bless and bring to life Your land
Look down upon this winter wheat and be glad that You have made
Blue for the sky and the color green that fills these fields with praise

As we made our way towards London, the wind was working its way through bountiful corn fields in a wave of green. In Michigan, the corn isn't looking quite as bountiful, thanks to the cool, wet weather of this past June. But that same weather is responsible for the bountiful blueberry, cherry, and apple crops from Michigan farmers. It reminds me of God's provision for us. The conditions may not be right for God to provide for us this season in the same way he provided for us last season - but, praise be to God, those same conditions will allow God to provide for us a different bounty - one that will sustain us. May our hearts, like those fields, be filled with praise.