Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.
–1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 (NIV)–

Better a little with the fear of the Lord
    than great wealth with turmoil.
–Proverbs 15:16 (NIV)–

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In this podcast I have a tendency to idealize farm life, but the reality is, having a farming business is not the best idea for everybody. It is a very, very dangerous line of business to be involved in. The following hazards present themselves not just for dad, but for every single family member: tractor and machinery injuries and deaths; falling into a grain bin like quicksand and suffocating to death; getting trampled or gored to death by livestock; cancer, nerve damage, and birth defects from exposure to industrial strength pesticides; heat stroke from long hours out in the sun; fatigue from working your body too much; lightning strikes and tornadoes out in the wide open fields; and falling off of roofs, silos, and lofts.

I think the safest and most ideal scenario should be to aim for something akin to farm property–without running an actual farming business–and which lacks all the dangerous farm equipment and buildings. Lots of property, acres, and a farm house like setup, but the husband and the wife each have their own remote work-from-home businesses online (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10). But the property should not be too off the grid, not too far out in the rural–perhaps around 5-10 minutes away from a hospital, police department, and fire department. This seems to offer the family maximum independence and privacy combined with maximum safety and emergency response. Both Little House on the Prairie and Field of Dreams tap into this vision of what has been called the “old American dream,” where the family’s connection to the natural creation is both a livelihood and a spiritual grounding; success and ambition are tied not just to effort or financial achievement, but to a moral or spiritual commitment that reflects the “Protestant work ethic,” or the economic virtues of diligence, thrift, and the Golden Rule; strong family and community ties as the framework for personal and social fulfillment; life’s meaning is clearer and moral effort is rewarded; self-reliance, faith, family, and the land are the central themes. –J.B.

Richard Weiss, The American Myth of Success (The University of Illinois Press, 1988).

Irvin Wyllie, The Self-Made Man in America (The Free Press, 1954), pp. 151-174.

Richard Steele, The Religious Tradesman (Sprinkle Publications, 1989).