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You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with richness.
–– Psalm 65:11
Having grown up in a small town set amidst the pastures where cattle grazed and fields where row crops of corn, soybeans, and milo dominated the landscape, the gravel road was not the rare oddity, but a regular part of life. When I learned how to drive a stick shift … it was on a gravel road. As a high school freshman, the majority of my commute was spent in a school bus on a gravel road. I still bear scars acquired when tripping on a gravel road. When I was fortunate enough to get a date once I received my driver’s license, if she was the farmer’s daughter, my freshly washed car would be covered with dust before I arrived at her door. When my classmates … uh … imbibed, that usually took place parked alongside a gravel road. Going on a long run, inevitably a percentage of those miles were spent navigating the tracks and loose rocks on … a gravel road. When stuffing friends in your car, ignoring legal limits, there was a good chance your chassis would grate the gravel of the hump between the tire tracks.
Gravel roads are not groomed with tracks in the beginning. The tracks evolve as the traffic makes its way from point A to point B. The longer the period between visits of the road maintenance crew, the deeper the ruts of the tracks in the road. Heavy loads and rutted roads do not make for a tranquil relationship. However, the farmer is more than willing to navigate the rutted tracks when a lower chassis is a sign of an abundant harvest. “You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with richness.” The scraping of the chassis can be tolerated by the farmer as it is the sound of richness and abundance. Earlier the Psalmist exults –– “You visit the earth and water it,
you greatly enrich it, the river of God is full of water; you provide the people with grain, for so you have prepared it. You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers, and blessing its growth.”
This is not the language of acquisition or greed or opportunism or gluttony or opulence or fortune. Rather, this is the language of provision and blessing and grace that have little to do with possessions and capital. At the end of the holiday classic, It’s a Wonderful Life, a reinvigorated and exultant George Bailey is toasted by his brother Harry –– “A toast to my big brother George: The richest man in town” Yet, even though George Bailey’s clerk is feverishly tabulating donations, the viewer understands that Harry’s toast has little to do with money.
“You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with richness.” In fact, meager means are not a barrier to an abundant life. Riches can be evidenced in laughter, friendship, service, purpose, and love. Truly, what is it that makes your life rich? The seeds of gratitude grow into a bountiful life harvest. You may not even notice a little gravel on the chassis.
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