Standing Alone
Jim and I went over into southern Illinois to do some visiting the other day. It was a road I hadn’t been on in a long time and I enjoyed the beautiful trees just beginning to change to their Autumn colors and the huge fields full of grain that was ready to be harvested.
As we rode along I noticed one particular field of soybeans and standing in clear sight in the middle of that field was a lone stalk of corn that had somehow survived the summer in that field of another crop. It looked almost comical standing there two feet higher than the soybean crop. It looked out of place.
My mind began to think of lessons we could learn from that lone stalk of corn. If we apply that image to our lives, there are some practical lessons:
- There are times when we have to stand alone when everyone else around us disagrees with us. You see, corn is not soybeans and soybeans are not corn. If you’ve ever had your faith tested by everyone around you – perhaps at your job, or our Christian young people at school – you can feel very alone.
- There may be times when you stick out like a sore thumb because everybody else is doing the same things – they dress the same way, they talk the same way, they follow the world in many of the same ways, and because you don’t, you become the one stalk of corn in that field of soybeans. You’re different and sometimes people just don’t like to be different.
- My mind thought about the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 19) when he had fled from Jezebel and hidden himself in a cave. Even after God had done so many wonderful works through him, he weakened and fled from the enemy. Verse 10 of 1 Kings 19 is a proof text of what I am talking about: “…I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away” (emphasis added). Even though God had done wonderful things through the prophet Elijah, he felt alone.
- The young man Daniel is another example of one who had to stand alone. He could either obey the law of the land and only bow to the King, or he could bow before God and be sent to the lion’s den. Daniel stood alone and followed God, not man.
I could keep giving you examples of those who had to stand alone, but I’m sure you get the point. There are times when we simply must stand against what the world would have us to do, so we would fit in. But, even when we stick out like that stalk of corn in a soybean field, we really aren’t alone because our God is always with us.
“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil” (Eph. 6:11).
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AUTHOR: Donna Faughn
