October 6

Push vs Self-Propel


So today I decided to help my husband out with the yard. This summer had 70 days of drought, and now it has decided to rain almost every day causing mushiness and steam to hang around. I knew I needed to take advantage of a morning without rain or errands and surprise my husband who had been working so hard putting together our storage shed. So I put my ugly clothes on and ventured outside to mow in the mud. There is nothing homier to me than a fresh cut lawn so I pressed on. But on this morning I discovered something I had not in the past. It was a small black bar that could be pulled in and held against the handle. I had always concentrated on the very large RED bar that started the mower, but never paid attention to the small black one . . . the self-propel bar!!! Once I started the mower and held that thing in . . . let’s just say I felt I was in a lawn mower race and was projected to win that “bad-boy!” I was sort of afraid I was going to run into something. It was awesome!

I could not help laughing at myself and feeling so dumb that I was manually pushing around a self-propel mower all the times before. I always new it was a self-propel mower because when we were shopping for a mower, my husband said it was worth the extra money for the self-propelled (and it is). After mowing “my way” (without any revelation of the propel bar), I had told my husband that we needed a riding lawn mower and couldn’t imagine what a push mower would be like (ha, ha). I guess I thought that it would just work as a propel mower on its own. Nobody told me I had to do anything!

During the light bulb moment, God showed me something very practical. A lot of times we find ourselves just pushing through life. Just pushing and pushing and wearing ourselves out. If we only knew that there was power right under our fingertips! That power is the Holy Spirit! It is amazing the difference between relying on our own strength verses relying on God’s strength. It is pretty silly not to use it, right! It’s there for a reason . . . a gift to bring strength in our own weaknesses. Don’t go through life without the help of the Holy Spirit! Struggling to do it on your own wastes too much time and effort . . . “Opt for the full-size!”

God can do anything, you know – far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. Ephesians 3: 18 (The Message)