The Farmer Who Planted Before the Rain

In 2012, a wheat farmer named David Brandt in central Ohio faced a brutal drought. Neighbors held off planting their cover crops — why waste seed when the forecast showed nothing but dry heat for weeks? But David did something that looked foolish. He planted anyway. He had committed his farming methods to the Lord years earlier, adopting no-till and cover-cropping practices he believed honored the land God gave him. So he put the seed in the ground and left the results where they belonged — in hands bigger than his own.

When the rains finally came that October, David's fields already had root systems reaching deep into the soil. His neighbors' bare fields washed and crusted over. David's land drank it in. The following spring, his yields outperformed the county average by a wide margin. Soil scientists from Ohio State started showing up to study what he had done.

David did not have a crystal ball. He had a commitment. He decided long before that drought who he was farming for, and that decision carried him through a season when every visible sign said stop.

Proverbs 16:3 does not promise that committing our work to the Lord removes the drought. It promises that when we surrender our plans to the Almighty, He establishes our steps — even when the sky is empty and the ground is hard. The invitation is not to understand the outcome but to trust the One who holds it.