MOWER MISHAP

 

By:

 

Timm Rawlins

 

 

It’s summer in Grant County, a time when God uses the splendor of nature to work into us the Godly virtues of patience, self-control and lawn mower maintenance.  He uses common circumstances to teach uncommon values.  Mowing the lawn is a prime example.

            If everything goes right, it’s a mundane task; mentally, emotionally and spiritually unchallenging.  However, throw in a few variables and it becomes a monumental undertaking fraught with spiritual challenges that would cause even the most mature Christian to pose the theological question:  Why do bad lawn mowers happen to good people?  Let me answer with an illustration.

            On Sunday afternoon, my father and I, with the aid of my 16-month-old son, decided through some gross oversight to do a good deed and mow my brother and sister-in-law’s lawn.          

            We are neighbors on a ranch.  In return for the use of their riding lawn mower I have vowed to keep it on a thorough, rigid, maintenance schedule that calls for fueling it with gas whenever it runs out- give or take a few days- and promising to check the oil one of these times.

It had been reported by my colleagues, that one of the tires was flat and the battery was dead, which came as a real shock to me since I didn’t even know it had a battery.  I made the command decision to fix the tire by installing some of that goo that comes in an aerosol can.  Tire goo is the substance on which my whole maintenance program is founded.  On the ranch, we buy it by the case and use it liberally. 

            Tire goo is almost useless if you can’t spread it by immediately driving on the tire after application, which is impossible if your lawn mower has a dead battery.  By the time I realized this, we had used our last can, so we drove to the shop and picked up the air compressor and battery charger.

After airing the tire, I became slightly perturbed when I noticed that some incompetent person had ignored standard operating procedure by apparently using the wrong size screwdriver in the ignition switch.  It was stripped so badly I had to dig a pair of scissors out of my pickup with which to properly turn the switch.

            Fortunately, this gave the battery plenty of time on the charger and after only a brief try at the ignition switch with the scissors, the tire went flat again.  It was at this point that my spirit began to perceive the Lord was subtly working patience into my life through a fiery trial.  I responded by biting a hole in my bottom lip.

            My father, who is annoyingly good-natured, played with his grandson and chuckled in amusement at our predicament. It was awful.

            Again we filled the tire. With a twist of the scissors the engine sputtered to life. Victoriously barking out orders to unhook the charger, I jumped on and unwittingly popped the clutch, killing the engine.  Argh!  Dad, being the patient man that he is, only

laughed and snapped his fingers in mock disappointment. Realizing that in the grand scheme of things this circumstance was totally insignificant I beat my head against a nearby cottonwood tree.  The lawn mower just sat there looking smug.

Let me say that it wasn’t so much the situation that bothered me, it was because it was Sunday, a day of rest, a day when I should have been stretched out on my couch relaxing, under the influence of a full belly. But, oh no, I’m laying on the hard ground clutching an air hose wondering what it would be like to strangle the person who’s idea it was to put the valve stem on the inside of a riding lawn mower tire.

            I heard a wonderful message in church that very morning on grace. How God will enable us to be victorious if we humble ourselves, bringing every thought captive unto the obedience of Christ, but to tell you the truth, I really wasn’t planning on trying it out until Monday.  I wondered why I felt the way I did, grouchy, impatient, cranky, mean...again.  I began to realize how impossible it was to change without God’s help.  Immediately upon this revelation, things miraculously changed...for the worse.

            Using the scissors, I stripped the ignition switch out completely at which time the tire, as if on cue, instantly went flatter then a pancake.  My father pronounced the battery legally dead.   My son, as if in mourning, began to wail inconsolably, causing Dad to become even more good-natured.  Just then I stepped over a giant snarl of air hoses and extension cords into a substance that gave alarming credibility to the legend that dogs larger than Beefmaster bulls roam the ranch.  It was at this point that I became humble.

            When I finally accepted the fact that things were totally out of my control, that the only thing left for a normal, well-adjusted, mature adult to do was roll up in the fetal

position and sob uncontrollably; God showed me something.  Something that my father had learned long ago.

            This catastrophe, this abomination to the high calling of proper lawn mower care, this wreck...was hilariously funny. The only thing I could do was laugh, at the situation, at the lawn mower, at myself.  From all the enemies that God has delivered me, I am by far the worst. What I had imagined to be a disaster was in reality joy unspeakable and full of glory.  I just had to make the choice of seeing it that way.