The Farmer Who Never Locked His Barn

In the small town of Elburn, Illinois, Harold Metzger ran a 200-acre corn and soybean operation for forty-three years. What made Harold different from every other farmer in Kane County was his barn. He never locked it. Neighbors knew that if they needed a tool, a bag of seed, or a tank of diesel at midnight during planting season, Harold's barn was open.

When the recession of 2008 hit and grain prices collapsed, three families on his road nearly lost their farms. Harold renegotiated his own loans, then quietly co-signed notes for each of them. His wife, Ruth, told him he was crazy. He told her he was obedient.

Harold never once checked commodity futures with anxiety. He slept soundly through every drought warning and every market dip. When asked how, he would say, "The Lord has been generous with me. Fear would be an insult to His faithfulness."

Harold died in 2019 at eighty-one. At his funeral, the church ran out of chairs. His four children all still farm that same land, and the barn door still hangs open.

The psalmist writes that the one who fears the Almighty "is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord." Harold Metzger understood something most of us struggle to learn — that genuine generosity and unshakable peace grow from the same root: a heart that trusts El Shaddai more than the balance sheet.