“Take away the stone,” Jesus John 11:39
While on vacation my refrigerator broke. Then a few days ago, while cutting the grass, the lawnmower broke. I used it to write a story about my ‘self-propulsion problem,’ then forced the thing to a spot on my porch! It was broken, so it didn’t deserve a place in the garage out of the rain! For days my mind grappled with the ugly reality that I would have to spend $3-400 for a new mower. Something I did NOT want to do! Last night I had an epiphany! “Why not try to FIX it?!”
Out of necessity, I have learned to be handy. When the mower broke LAST year, I ended up rebuilding the whole front end. It was a long and tedious project that I did NOT want to repeat. Throwing the thing away seemed a better ‘long term’ option. The pain of the COST is what held me back. Until I remembered YouTube!
Whatever did we do before ‘ YouTube?” I mean, even as I wrote that word, the word processor highlighted it as misspelled! Clicking on it showed that the ‘T’ in ‘tube’ is supposed to be capitalized! ‘YouTube’ is now an official word in the dictionary! I have fixed all kinds of things by watching a YouTube video. I had doubted a ‘self propelled lawnmower repair’ video was there, but was surprised to find SEVERAL! I got downright giddy!
The best video was the first one. A guy actually recorded himself saying, “I am not very handy but wanted to see if I could fix this myself!” My kind of guy! I watched, got some clues, got my tools, propped my lawnmower up on a cement block and got started. MY problem could have been even MORE serious than HIS. He had an ‘easy access’ door to the gear housing. MINE would require a major overhaul! So I started with the simplest thing first. Removing the front wheel I found a nail had locked up the whole works. 2 minutes and $400 richer, she was running like a top! Or… a MOWER!
I have been broken for a while now. It would not be right to not tell about it. The Joy of Jesus, the Power of His Presence and the Cause of His Call have been eluding me for a while. Problems and people have just gotten me stuck to a point where I just didn’t want to ‘GO’ anymore. Looking over my journal, if I can call it that, I see that God has been sitting back waiting for me to freeze up! And then I did!
What a blessing it is to know Jesus. I should have remembered that He runs the biggest repair shop in the universe. I’ve successfully come out of it many times before. But somehow, my life just kind of took on a life of its own. Running ahead I found myself running behind… then broken down…going ‘no where!’ What was a ‘BIG DEAL’ to ME… was nothing more than a ‘quick and gentle fix’ for Him. I had forgotten!
When seemingly ‘nothing’ is happening for SO LONG… it is easy to do the human thing and MAKE it happen! ‘DO something’ became the goal. But I have never been good at inventing things that work well. And God is NOT in the Kool-Aid (oops.. capital ‘A’) business! AGAIN I have learned that He will NOT honor something DONE in His Name if it wasn’t first BORN from His heart! Somewhere along the line I had reversed the order and expected Jesus to ‘Follow ME!” He never does!
I rejoice that my God is in the repair and ‘stone’ removal business! Even when I don’t deserve it! ‘What a Savior!”
