On Mowing and Marriage and Trying to Be Like Jesus

July 17, 2016April 30, 2021 / Apple Hill Cottage / 8 Comments

There’s very little in this life that I like less than mowing grass. Reasons? Oh yeah, I got plenty:

What a waste of time — I could be gardening, reading, writing, washing dishes, mopping the kitchen floor…

What a waste of gasoline and added pollution, when we could be growing food, or flowers, or sheep instead of grass…

Grass has no value whatsoever, unless one is playing golf…

Why would I want to push a horribly noisy smelly machine that could easily cut off my fingers, or my toes, or throw flying sticks or rocks at my head?

I could go on, but you get the idea.

iris

Usually mowing the grass is Mr. H.C.’s job and I don’t have to think about it. But he’s busy doing the roof while the sun shines. (July in Pennsylvania makes watching the Weather Channel unnecessary; we know what the forecast will be: 90 percent humidity and scattered thunderstorms.) And the grass has to be mowed when the sun is shining too. Plus, the tractor is broken. So I’m being the selfless servant and mowing the grass with the push mower.

Right. Not quite so selfless as one might think…

Today as I started mowing, silently congratulating myself on serving my busy husband, he came down off the roof and waved at me to stop. When I stopped, he bent down and raised the mower deck on me. “You’re cutting it too short,” he said. Then he disappeared back up onto the roof.

Excuse me? If I am cutting the grass I will blimey well cut it at the height I want. The shorter the grass, the less it has to be mowed. I’d just as soon kill the wretched grass anyway. That’s the trouble with it, grass doesn’t die. Its roots live forever and come back to haunt you next year after you’ve planted a lovely flower bed there. But I digress.

I confess to being sweaty, hot, and bothered. Muttering the whole time, two passes later, I stopped the mower and lowered the deck back to where it was. But that still didn’t make me feel any better. Here I was — unselfishly mowing the grass so he wouldn’t have to — and he comes to tell me I’m doing it wrong? What kind of ungrateful man is this anyway?

Oh wretch that I am…

I’ve heard enough sermons in my life to know that this is not what Jesus would do. And I’ve also heard enough John Dorean sermons to know that the goal of every Jesus lover is to grow and be more like him every day. Of course, we fail all the time, but that is the goal…

So when I stopped to take a break and get a cool drink of water, I sat down on the couch and picked up the book I’ve been reading. Sacred Marriage. (If you know this book, you may laugh here.)

I had a copy of this book once, but we were newly married and I ended up giving it away to someone before I read it, and I never got it back. Since then I’ve read sections of it, and heard sermons from it, and I know the subtitle by heart — What if God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More than to Make Us Happy?; but I’ve never read it cover to cover.

Turns out, maybe I should have.

I always thought, yeah, yeah, I know what Gary Thomas is going to say. Die to your self. Respect your spouse. Love unconditionally.

And yes, that’s what he says. And yes, it’s hard. And as Thomas says–none of that comes naturally to us.

But as I sat there reading Chapter Six, “The Cleansing of Marriage: How Marriage Exposes Our Sin” I knew. I knew that those words needed to penetrate my soul. Just as I need to die to my Self a hundred, no, a thousand times a day, I also need to desire humility a hundred, no, a thousand times a day.

Of course, we always see our spouse’s sin; it’s so much easier to see other’s sins, isn’t it? Yes, this specifically refers to taking the log out of our own eye before we take the speck out of someone else’s eye (Matthew 7:3-5). Listen to this:

View marriage as an entryway into sanctification — as a relationship that will reveal your sinful behaviors and attitudes and give you the opportunity to address them before the Lord. But here’s the challenge: Don’t give in to the temptation to resent your partner as your own weaknesses are revealed. Correspondingly give them the freedom and acceptance they need in order to face their own weaknesses as well. In this way, we can use marriage as a leg up, a piercing spiritual mirror, designed for our sanctification and growth in holiness.

I needed to re-read that sentence: Don’t give in to the temptation to resent your partner as your own weaknesses are revealed. There it is: the basic sin of all sins–Pride. Lack of humility. Thinking that I know best, yet knowing in my heart and soul that I do not. It’s ugly, pride is. Later Gary Thomas quotes François Fenélon who wrote: “…all the saints are convinced that sincere humility is the foundation of all virtues.”

To grow in holiness marriage must be understood as a spiritual discipline, Thomas says. “To do this,” he writes, “we must not enter marriage predominantly to be fulfilled, emotionally satisfied, or romantically charged, but rather to become more like Jesus Christ.”

There it is again…to become more like Jesus; and to do that we must put on our robe of humility and not throw it off each time we get hot and bothered. And not only do I agree with Fenélon that humility is the foundation of all virtues, but can I suggest that pride just might be the foundation of all sin?

Today as I was reading an article about the need for us to feel awe before our holy God, I came across the term self-forgetfulness. How I longed for it. The author, Jen Wilkin, cited research that suggests when humans feel awe they are better able to forget themselves and reach out to other people. And I started wondering–what else makes me put on self-forgetfulness?
Blue sky behind gray clouds Doing something for someone else with no expectations. (Remember mowing the lawn? It went wrong because of my own expectation–that my husband would be pleased and thank me profusely for doing something I hated to do.)
Praying–talking to the Holy God of the Universe — yes, that’s one that definitely gets the mind off oneself.
Thinking about Jesus–whether it is reading the Bible, listening to worship music, or just meditating on how weak and incompetent I am, and how strong and competent Jesus is for me.
So here we have: Go watch a sunset or the clouds or stand on a beach or a mountain; Make dinner for your neighbor; Read your favorite passage in God’s word and thank Him for it; Meditate on the strength of Jesus and your own shortcomings and feel awe that you are so loved.

As I read further in Sacred Marriage, this paragraph jumped out at me:

Don’t run from the struggles of marriage. Embrace them. Grow in them. Draw near to God because of them. Through them you will reflect more of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. And thank God that he has placed you in a situation where your spirit can be perfected.

And today, in the sermon I heard this: He loves us where we are at any given moment. Certainly He invites, encourages, challenges us to become more like Christ, but that becoming is not a prerequisite of His love. Can I get an Amen?

white clover

It’s time to mow the grass again…

The tractor is fixed. As Mr. H.C. took it for a mowing spin to see how it was running, he said, “I’m not going to mow the grass very short, because there are lots of bees on the clover, and I don’t want to mow the flowers away.” Yeah, he knows how much I like bees and clover…

I smiled to myself. Thank you God that you have placed me in a situation where my spirit can be perfected.

And thank you God, that the tractor is fixed.

the quality of mercy is not strained…

June 3, 2016June 12, 2016 / Apple Hill Cottage / 12 Comments

i have a friend who has demons in his head.

oh, you can call it whatever modern scientific terminology you want — schizophrenia, bi-polar or borderline personality disorder, or just mental illness — but the truth is, they are demons.

they came and went. when he had wrestled them down, he was a wonderful man — a loyal friend who loved to laugh, a Jesus-lover, an i’ll-do-anything-for-you type of guy. he drove a bus full of hurting kids and loved them up every day, talking, laughing, and giving them little presents…he loved life then — God, his wife, his friends, his dog…

but when those demons were legion, he did odd things: quit his long time job because he thought no one liked him; left the church where people did love him, so he could go alone to a church where no one knew him; kept busy to the frantic pace where no one could keep up with him, just so he wouldn’t have to be still and hear the voices.

we, who don’t struggle with those kind of demons, can’t begin to fathom the darkness. so we try not to think about it.

until something unspeakable happens.

and even then, we still can’t fathom it. over and over i think, what could i have done? what if we’d just called them that night not too long ago when we were thinking of asking them if they wanted to go to a concert with us….

instead, we went to the concert by ourselves. three days after her funeral.

i cry out to God. these were your beloved children… isn’t satan supposed to be defeated?

the sun is shining today and i am longing for rain. i can’t shake the grief.

even though i know there are others struggling just as much.

even though i know she is home with Jesus and at peace.

we are still here wondering what we could have done to keep this tragedy from happening. wondering why a just God allowed something so awful to happen. trying to find something that will ease the pain and make it okay to walk out in the light again.

it isn’t a matter of forgiveness. i’ve forgiven him. he’s my friend.

it isn’t a matter of always expecting blessings. i don’t. i’ve lived with sorrow, unanswered prayer, and i own plenty of sins.

aren’t we all just one cracked neuron short of big sin?

but grace…

because of grace i don’t have to worry about my own sins. for through nothing i’ve done, through grace, they’ve been wiped clean. all i had to do is believe that Jesus died for me and my record is erased. this prisoner has been set free.

so how do i pray?

the verses that usually give me comfort sound like platitudes to me.

oddly, the verses that give me the most comfort are stark:

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God — Romans 3:23

there is no one righteous, not even one — Isaiah 59:1

the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise — Psalm 51:17.

but this one comforts me too: for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more — Hebrews 8:12

and so i pray for mercy.

may it be so.

The title of this post is from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. I had to learn it in Miss Closser’s 9th grade English class. It didn’t mean much to me then. But it does now… in part it reads:

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest.
It becomes the throned monarch better than
      His crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty 
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings,
But mercy is above this sceptered sway.
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings.
It is an attribute to God himself.
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.