Keeping On
“Keep your heart with all diligence,
For out of it spring the issues of life.”
And then we go to Psalm 126:5-6:
“Those who sow in tears
Shall reap in joy.
He who continually goes forth weeping,
Bearing seed for sowing,
Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,
Bringing his sheaves with him.”
My dear friends, it is with great sadness and even shame that I must report to you that our beloved South Africa is severely wounded. It is bleeding, not from the outside, not from foreign enemies but rather from the inside, self-inflicted. Please continue to pray for us. We shall recover - We are a Christian nation, we are tenacious and we are robust. Some have had to flee their homes, they are even coming to stay with us at Shalom Farm.
There are shop owners who have stood by and watched the work of their hands go up in flames; businessmen watching the work of their lives destroyed in front of them, burnt up. Farmers failing to take their produce to market; dairy farmers pouring tens of thousands of litres of milk onto the ground because they cannot get it to market.
Fruit, beautiful fruit, ripe for the picking with nobody to pick it, absolutely going over and rotting in the fields... Forest fires all over are being put in by arsonists. And I am saying, “Lord, what is going on here?”
Yesterday afternoon I called my little grandsons. I asked them to come with me up to the chapel where we could pray together. The oldest one is 13 years old and the youngest about 4 years old, I sat there and I looked at these little boys, all of them boys... about 9 of them actually - some of my granddaughters couldn’t be there.
And I looked at these little faces, big smiles on their faces... I get quite emotional even telling you this. I said:
“Boys, are you afraid?” They said, “No Khulu, we are not afraid!”
I said, “Why aren’t you afraid, boys?”
They said, “Because Jesus is here and He is with us.”
You know, we read the Bible together, we prayed together... They got on their bikes afterwards. All of them rode off together, laughing, shouting to each other: “See you tomorrow!”
I thought, “Lord, what faith - What simplistic childlike faith!”
You might be sitting there listening to this and saying to me, “Well, Angus, what are you going to be doing today?” Well, today I am going to get on a tractor, I haven’t been on one for a while. One of my sons has got no tractor drivers so I am going to take that tractor, and I am going to load up bales of hay and bring them into a central place where the cattle can be fed. In other words, I am going to carry on carrying on. We are going to clean up this mess and we are going to look up to Jesus, we are going to keep up the good work. Why? Because Jesus is going with us and those tears will be wiped away and we will face a new day.
God bless you and keep strong - Keep your eyes on The King.
He will not fail us.
Goodbye.