GREEN BABY

My Green Baby.  Isn’t she a beauty?  Well…she was.  A moment of silence, please.  If you’ve seen our place, you know there’s a lot to mow.  In order to mow you have to have the right equipment to do it.  When we first moved here, we bought a new push mower.  It was stolen before we moved in.  A sign.  So, we got another one.  With grass nearly waist high in spots, my push mower soon caputed.  So, we got another one.  See the pattern here?  We still have that push mower and she’s still going strong.  We are slowly cutting out the brush from around our place and we now have real grass to mow.

We split the mowing.  Did I mention there’s a lot to mow?  Tony mows the fields with the tractor, I mow our “yards.”   Until last year, I pushed them.  The more brush we cut out, the more yard we had, the more I pushed.  It was good for me, right?  Well, last year for my birthday, Tony surprised me with a riding mower.  My very own.  Nothing runs like a Deere.  It wasn’t new, but it was new to me.  She was perfect!  Bright and shiny – green and yellow.  I called her my Green Baby.  A moment of silence, please.

To be honest, when I first got her I was a little intimidated by her.  She was loud.  She had these blades that could cut your body in two better than any magician.  There were gears.  There was a turtle to rabbit thingy.   Standard stuff on most riding mowers.  Once I learned that the gas and the oil didn’t go in the same place, we were good to go.  She purred like a kitten.  I’d hop on her, turn up the God tunes, and off we’d go.  After the first summer, I really got comfortable with her.  I learned to know her so well.

I’d come home from work, hop on my Green Baby and we would plow through the yard, chop, chop, chopping that grass.  Her little 21 inch deck working just as hard as she could.  Up the hill, down the hill.  Quick turn left, quick turn right.  You know, over the river and through the woods.  We went everywhere together – not really, but you get my gist.  We had many adventures, most of them we kept just between the two of us.  Like the time I dropped a stick into the gas tank.  And the time I got the mower deck pin stuck under the fence and I had to kick the board off to get the mower out, then nail the fence back in before Tony got home.  And the time I ran into the clothes lines pole at an accelerated rate speed.  And the time I rode over this tiny little tree stump and got stuck and I had to dismount and lift the mower off.   And the time I went under a tree and a stick went through my earring and about ripped my ear off.  And the time I misjudged a limb and it knocked my glasses off and I could see nothing.  I found them on the ground, in one piece.  No harm done.  We had some great adventures. Memories…

Then the dreaded day.  I was trying to beat the moon.  Probably going a little too fast, well a lot too fast, rounding the corner of the brush pile and bam! my left front tire just barely caught the edge of a brick around the firepit.  It was awful.  There was this terrible noise.  I stopped the mower, well the brick stopped it, technically.   I turned my steering wheel to the left, but Green Baby didn’t move.  I turned my steering wheel to the right, but Green Baby didn’t move.  I turned Green Baby off.  I jumped off and walked around her to see what the problem was.  When I looked at the front of her, her front wheels were pointed in opposite directions.   Remember Herbie the Lovebug?  She was broke.   Just about this time, Tony comes out on the deck.  Uh-oh.  I muster up my sweetest smile.  I told him something bad had happened to my Green Baby.

Months later, I can finally admit that the death of Green Baby was completely my fault.  I was careless.  I was confident.  I was prideful.  Look at me…ew!

So be careful how you live, not as fools but as those who are wise.

Ephesians 5:15

I was a fool.  I was anything but careful.  I was untouchable.   I was thoughtless.  I’ve been reflecting on my foolishness.  Sometimes we (me) treat Jesus just like I treated my Green Baby. I expected her to do things for me – mow.  I expected her to mow when I wanted her to.  I expected her to do her job, but I failed to do my job.  I do expect Jesus to show up when I need Him.  I do expect Him to show up when I want something.  I do expect Him to do His job of keeping His promises.  But often I fail to do my job.  Oh sure, I start out taking very good care of my relationship with Him.  But somewhere along the line, I become complacent, faithless, careless.

Here’s the thing, carelessness is very costly.  My mower can be replaced, for a price, but someone has to work for that price.   Being careless with my relationship with Jesus can be costly too.  It costs me peace, joy, happiness, contentment, comfort.  The cost of carelessness with Jesus is so very high.  It is eternity.  See, he’s already paid the price, the ultimate price, His life, so that we can live eternally.  How can we take that for granted?  How can we be thoughtless?  How can we be careless with that?

More than that, I count all things to be loss

in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,

for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.

Philippians 3:8

Just like on Green Baby, sometimes I get complacent, I get careless, I get thoughtless, I go so fast that I break something and I’m separated from Him.  Just like I should have tended Green Baby a bit better, like she was valuable,  I must tend my relationship with Jesus a little better, like He’s most valuable.

Seek the Lord while you can find Him.

Call on Him now while He is near.

Let the people turn from their wicked deeds.

Let them banish from their minds the very thought of doing wrong!

Let them turn to the Lord that he may have mercy on them.

Yes, turn to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.

Isaiah 55:6-7

I love the message of Isaiah.  Turn to God and He will abundantly pardon!!!  No matter how careless we have been with our relationship with God, no matter how unfaithful we have been, no matter the direction of our wheels, if we turn to Him, we will be pardoned.  Turn, reverse, change and He will restore the joy of your salvation.