Things My Father Taught Me

When I was a lad growing up on the farm in Iowa sometimes my father would wake me up by saying “a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, your poverty will come in like a vagabond and your need like an armed man.” I didn’t know it at the time but that is a quotation from Proverbs 6:10-11 and again in Proverbs 24:33-34.

When I was about 10 my father started giving me a 4 H calf early in the spring. It was my responsibility to get it fed and watered and have it ready for the county fair in August. I would show it and usually get a blue ribbon in the competition. Then the cattle buyers would bid on them and I would get as much as $500, and I would give a tithe to the church. My father taught me Malachi 3:10, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse and test me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pout our for you a blessing until it overflows.”

So my father taught me the value of hard work and tithing and I have continued that all my life, through times of plenty and lean times. After being released from the USAF in 1973, 3 years short of retirement, I had to find another way to make a living. I tried real estate in Springfield for 2 years and a business consulting and tax service in Joplin for 2 years but neither one was successful. However, one of my clients in Joplin was a muffler shop so we decided to move to Maryville, MO to be near our aging parents and open a muffler shop there and had a successful business there for 26 years. I would not have thought of operating a muffler shop had the Lord not led me to see how successful his shop was. We built a new home just outside of Maryville in 1984 and when we sold our home in town, we became completely debt free and have been ever since. If we are faithful, God is faithful.

Bud Austin