Be a dreamer

The Bible tells us in PROVERBS 29:18: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” The New King James version will tell you: “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint.” We can lose everything on the farm as long as we don’t lose our dream. It’s our dream that gets us up in the morning, it’s our dream that gets us going. Write that dream down, make it plain so that others can run with it. There is no such thing as a one-man-show.
The Anglican cleric John Wesley (1703 – 1791) said about Christians, “If you’re on your own, it’s like taking a coal out of the fire and putting it by itself. What happens? It goes out.”
We need each other, we need to share our dreams with our families, first of all with our wives and then with our children and our neighbours and also very importantly with our staff. If they’ve caught your dream and they know where you’re going, they will go with you. But if they just have to keep on getting up every morning doing things, not knowing what’s happening, they’ll soon lose heart and vision. When we lose heart, we lose revelation and where there is no revelation, people don’t care anymore and that’s why they abuse your tools and your projects. It doesn’t take long to share your heart with your people. Don’t speak about your farm, speak about our farm. Don’t speak about your vision, speak about our vision. Don’t speak about your journeys, speak about our journey and then put it into practice. And when God starts to honour your dream, share it, don’t keep it to yourself. Don’t be greedy.
And speak your dream. There is tremendous power in the spoken word. Tell, but don’t cast your pearls before swine. What does this mean? It means don’t share your dream and your vision with people who don’t understand because they will stomp it into the mud. These were the words of Jesus – harsh words. Share your dream only with people who have a similar dream to yours, those who understand where you’re coming from and those who understand you. Aim high.
At Shalom we say that you must attempt something so big, that if it’s not of God, it’s doomed to fail. The reason being that when it succeeds, people will know that it was God that did it and He gets all the glory.
But the most important thing is to start. Start to implement your dream. And don’t be scared to ask advice. It’s free. There are many old retired farmers that have so much experience and nothing to do. Fetch them in your pickup, bring them to your farm, share your dream with them and let them tell you how to go about achieving it. They also had dreams. Some came true and some didn’t, but they persevered.
Also, don’t be afraid to change. A few years ago I had the most wonderful experience in Bredasdorp, where a family of boys told their father that they were going to start farming wild flowers (fynbos) and their father was not amused because his idea of farming was ploughing, milking cows and running sheep etc. But they were adamant and today, they’re running one of the biggest operations in that area. They followed their dreams and they were prepared to change. Try to do the same. – Angus Buchan     |fw