The Farmer Who Planted in February

In 1947, a cotton farmer named Earl Thibodeaux stood at the edge of his sixty acres outside Opelousas, Louisiana, staring at frozen ground. His wife, Mabel, had just handed him their last forty dollars — everything they had after a brutal winter. The sensible thing was to buy groceries. Earl drove to town, walked past the general store, and bought seed instead.

His neighbors thought he had lost his mind. You do not plant in February. You do not spend your last dollar on something you bury in dirt. But Earl understood something about the nature of soil and the character of the One who made it. He was not gambling. He was responding to an invitation.

That fall, Earl harvested the largest cotton yield in Evangeline Parish. He paid off his debts, fixed the roof Mabel had been praying about, and still had seed left over for the following spring.

Malachi 3:10 is the only place in all of Scripture where the Almighty says, "Test Me in this." The God who needs nothing from us opens His hands and says, Bring what you have into My storehouse — and then watch. This is not a transaction. It is a dare from a Father who already knows what He intends to pour out. Earl did not make that harvest happen. He simply put the seed where God told him to put it, and the floodgates did the rest.