Monday, May 14, 2012

Keeping Pushing Your Lawn Mower

"Pushing a lawn mower."

Yup, that's my URL thingamajig for this blog.

I had a great theology professor in grad school who used to live in Austin, Texas. One fine, 104 degree, 1000% humidity summer day he arrived at home and pulled his car into his driveway. Upon exiting, he turned and noticed his neighbor mowing his lawn in the very heat of the day. He began to think to himself about how hot and uncomfortable his neighbor must be, doing such a chore in the extreme heat, when his neighbor mowed all the way to the bottom of his property and turned, revealing his little son following right behind him pushing his own tricked-out toy lawn mower right behind and just like his daddy. My professor stopped and thought to himself, "That's it, right there."

That little boy was happy to be out in the monstrous heat "mowing" the lawn simply because his daddy was doing it first - and he wants to be just like his daddy.

Faith in Jesus is incredibly foolish. It's stupid, really. It causes you to do things like make friends with crazy, homeless people (I'll post pictures soon) and have them stay with you at your house as a member of the family. It causes you to believe that impossible things are possible (like rebuilding a church that runs out of money in a year). It causes you to love people who have hurt you, slandered you, and picked on you just for sport. It causes you to look at your ever dwindling bank account and have no fear. Faith in Jesus causes you to look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come in such a way as to say to the world that you expect it to happen - and you don't flinch in surprise when it does. Faith in Jesus causes you to meet Death and yet declare victory.

So, why do we act that way? Why do we make fools of ourselves and believe unbelievable things? Why do we give ten percent of our income to a church that looks like it's dying? Why do we let that homeless guy smell up the bed in our house and eat our food and cost us money? Why don't we tell that  whore to please go to someone else's church? Why in the world do we continue to listen to that pathetic liar time and time again? Why the heck do we mow the lawn in 104 degree weather when we could be inside the air-conditioned house sipping homemade lemonade???

We do it because our Daddy did it first - and we can't help but want to be just like Him. We love because He first loved us.

So here's to our Daddy. May we continue to be more and more like Him everyday, even when it makes us look stupid.




8 comments:

  1. Hi Becca Boo,
    You are a gifted writer with the ability to share the Good News! I look forward to reading your blog. Love the blogger name! Wonder where that came from?
    MOM

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  2. Welcome to the blogging world! Looking forward to reading more and maybe, one of these days soon, actually getting to meet you in person! :-) Keep writing!

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  4. (Previous post removed for bad grammar.)
    Becca, thank you for sharing this! You are so blessed to have that same grasp on the gospel and the same knack for communicating it that I've seen from other members of your family, wink wink! And God has given you such a tremendously unique perspective to be able to put it all together in a way that can break down the very gates of hell wherever you go. I am awaiting more posts with bated breath!

    God's blessings!

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  5. Its the 16th, where is number two? I want to read more...

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    1. I'm working on it right now. :-) Thanks for the desire!

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  6. Man I miss Middendorf stories! Great blog Becca!

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    1. Thanks so much, Emily! I owe that man a great deal of gratitude. He taught me so much over the past few years. but, of course, he would say, "We have only ONE teacher." I hope I can share Christ the way he does. Thanks for reading! More is to come! :-)

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