Does Anyone Have a Corn Stretcher?

• Posted: 8:41 AM
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• Author: Jayson Pagan

The petal to the metal. I lived it all the time. While on the evangelist field for 4 years I may have received more than 7 tickets for speeding. I’m well known by the state troopers perched on overpasses from Tucson, Arizona to Pensacola, Florida. I got friends at high paces!

VELOCITY. What does it get you? You are zipping through traffic, barely clearing the no-passing zone, hit the gas to put the one you just passed deep into your review mirror only to be sitting side by side with him at the next red light (trying not to look obvious that you are ignoring eye contact as if that is the only way for you to confess your road rage through two windows).




There is a time when “urgency” becomes a liability, not an asset. A point when in order to get on with revival, the will of God, the next step in your ministry and life, or the next level in our churches we are barely clearing the passing zone. I have known some people to become so reckless in an automobile that I have refused to go along for the ride unless I was controlling the wheel.

Can you force a flower to spring from the ground on your time-clock? Can you compel a two month baby to walk by duct taping him to a walker? I don’t think so. God is more interested in us learning from the process of things, the means, than the end. It is the process that teaches us to depend on Him and to love people – to be personal, kind, and patient and to grow in His image. Even the Almighty could have thought about blinking His eye and created the world in less than a mille-second. Did He? No – He did it through a process.

If something is in your power to do – then you must do it quickly, yet efficiently. But you must determine which things you control and which things you have ZERO control over. Those ‘God-reserved’ processes are set aside for God’s calendar, not ours’.

I AM LEARNING THAT WHEN I TRY TO SPEED THROUGH LIFE AND MINISTRY

• I lose sight of the details.
There is no scenic route for the urgent leader. I find that if I am simply interested in getting from point A to point B, everything in between becomes a blur. I hate to think of all the experiences that I have lost because I wanted to rush things.

• I seem arrogant and unconcerned about people.
I am a pretty driven person – so much that I will DRIVE right past the people that matter. A key indicator of my ‘going to fast’ is that I am doing a whole lot on my own. If I am flying solo, then there is no one on the jet with me. I am going someplace on my own – and I find myself blaming people for not wanting to follow or being lazy. The bottom line is, no one wants to ride with a reckless driver. People want to feel leisure and relaxed around me – not like I am going to pounce and prod every time I catch a glimpse of their face.

• I take unnecessary risks.
I love going fast. I own a Chrysler 300C with a HEMI. My wife loves it, too. She’ll hit the petal, the car will fish tail, her eyes turn red and she starts screaming “HEMI POWER!”. Ok, it’s not that bad (her eyes don’t turn red), but close enough. The fact is once you gain such a high speed your surroundings control you instead of the other way around. What happens if, in the middle of the HEMI rage, we hit a patch of water and hydroplane or we didn’t have time to see another car pulling from a side road? Focusing on ‘speed’ will force you into places of unnecessary risks. I am not talking about necessary risks that will produce results; I am talking about hazardous, unnecessary risks that can produce chaos, havoc, failure, shame, failure, frustration, and ultimately SIN. There is a big difference between taking a bonafied risk and being foolish or careless. Even though there are whole sports divisions that maximize on the 'fast and the furious', as leaders, we should not be so enticed by these dangerous and fun-looking speeds - it just doesn't work in leadership.

• I live in a state of frustration.
A young farmer has planted a huge field of corn. After two weeks into the crop he sees the corn has only sprouted about 5 inches high. He makes his way into the field and starts with the first row. He grabs the little leaves of the sprout and talks to it gingerly and starts to tug at its leaves. The leaf breaks. He moves to the next one and pulls on the stalk to try to stretch it a little thinking that because it is a little thicker it may be able to take it. The stalk snaps. By this time he is frustrated and well into the afternoon he has gone through a whole row of seedlings.
He has left utter chaos in his path. In his trail he has left behind a whole row of broken, snapped, uprooted, and withered plants. He is frustrated. He wonders what he has done wrong. He has ruined a wonderful crop. He has done irreparable damage. HE COULD HAVE PLANTED THE SEED AS FAST HE WANTED – that was in his control. But the growing of the seed is in God’s hands. When I am sincerely frustrated I need to take a look at my speedometer.


• I find myself disappointed in myself and God.
I have reasoned with God about where He has me. I have inquired about why things are no different. Sometimes I have done it with true inquiry in mind – I simply needed to ask and I wanted to know the answer. Other times, I knew the answer – I just asked out of pure arrogance and disappointment. Amazing how the farmer thinks he knows better than the Creator. With God, timing is everything. But not ONLY timing, but the rate or speed we do His will. He wants us to love people and slow down and take time with Him. I have seen so many pictures of cowboys wrangling stampeding cattle, but I have never seen a picture of a shepherd wrangling stampeding sheep. Sheep are 24/7 grazers. True leadership must understand that God’s great works take time and that on the road to true ministry there are more yellow lights and red lights than there are green lights.

God only has one speed. HIS.

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