Mowing the Lawn with Jesus

The lawn mower got fired up last night – it is my personal Jenny Craig program. I try to vary the task; sometimes mowing diagonally, sometimes parallel with the sidewalk. In any case I do what the farmers do – at least what they did before computers – and focus on a spot at the end of the row in order to keep my path straight. After a coupla swipes in the front yard, these song verses came into my head:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

It’s amazing how I don’t remember the drone of the mower. I thought how, if we keep our eyes on the goal, Jesus, then our path is straight. So I tried, with that in mind, to mow my paths straight. Every time, I mean every time, by the time I got to the end my eyes were all over the place and my mind was off the target. I’d try again when I turned around to go back, same focus, same plan, and by golly if I didn’t get distracted and look all over the place by the time I got to the end….with this song still ticking in my head. Funny how that happens with my spiritual focus as well….. Amazingly, by my own physical ability to walk mostly straight and the fact that I don’t have to worry about a steering wheel on the mower, the pattern looked pretty straight, not perfect, but good enough to not get a nasty-gram from the HOA – good enough for "the things – and people – of earth".


So that was the front lawn, it looks pretty tidy, nice flowers, all trimmed up and generally green, thanks to my Ace Hardware, rocket fired, $7.99 water shooter-outer at the end of the hose. (Our sprinkler systems breaks annually and we have yet to do our annual repair job.)


Then I headed to the back. The back yard is a whooooole different story. I’d be hard pressed to mow anything straight back there, due to the pile of landscaping rock from a previous project - staged for the next project, a dirt pile, divots and other landmines thanks to two dogs, and a real sense of "Under Construction" aura about the place with all the parts for a future sprinkler system stacked up…and I think I already mentioned the toilet sitting on the back patio from the just-about-finished tiling job…uh, sorry for the visual - it really is only temporary. The only good thing about it is all that there is a nice wooden fence surrounding the whole scene so the neighbors can’t tell what flavor of hillbillies we’re aiming at! There are no end goals, it’s messy, not pleasant, I don’t even enjoy being out there right now.


I thought of another analogy. The front yard – the outer shell exposed to the world – is tidy, clean and presentable. The back yard – covered by a tidy fence – is trashed out. Seems to be parallel to my life: Occasionally the lawn out front doesn’t get mowed regularly, an errant weed once in a while, but generally a good display. Gosh, I’ll bet you are really surprised by the analogy here….What shape is your back yard in? Messy? Plain? Low Maintenance? Lots of flowers? Bare dirt?

Comments

[Joel Frederick]

That's hittin' below the belt!

Great thoughts

[Stephanie]

That was an awesome post. Great analogies.

[Carol Ann Kelly]

Very clever, Donna. Loved it. I love the backyard description. We were in a similar place before we had to throw Bethany's grad party. Nothing like a bunch of people coming over to motivate you! Pre-party there were piles of "junk" ahem, I mean "saved treasures" stacked up precisely to keep the gate from falling down. It was loooveeellly! Then one day I come home from work - wowza! Carpenter Rob had moved the "junk/treasures" AND put in a new gate that actually worked...we're movin' on up, baby!