Mowing My Lawn

I was mowing my lawn on Monday (one of my least favorite things to do) and I wondered. Who was the first person to decide we should mow lawns? Why not let nature be nature? We don’t mow in between the trees of a forest or the acres of grass we see across the rolling hills of the country. They are all allowed to go “au naturale.” Why not my lawn? Who decided it needed to be clipped, trimmed, and manicured? Then, I looked across my street at my neighbor (who has not mowed in a couple of months) and thought, “Yeah, that looks awful.”

It’s instinctive, I think. Let’s face it. We just do not like junk drawers, a messy room, cluttered car, or, yes, an overgrown lawn. Why? Where does that need come from? Imago dei. That is Latin for “in the image of God.” We are all made in God’s image and He is a God of order not chaos. For instance, in Genesis, we read that on day four, “…God said, ‘Let great lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them mark off the seasons, days, and years. Let these lights in the sky shine down on the earth.’ And that is what happened. God made two great lights, the sun and the moon – the larger one to govern the day, and the smaller one to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set these lights in the sky to light the earth, to govern the day and night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:14-18). 

The universe is precise. Long before GPS, ships navigated by the stars. A navigator would take a sextant and measure the angle between an astronomical object and the horizon. Using the Sun at noon or Polaris at night (in the Northern Hemisphere) they could find the latitude. Measuring the lunar distance between the moon and another celestial object (such as a star or planet) helped them determine Greenwich Mean Time or longitude. So, the placing of the sun, moon, and stars is so accurate, sailors could determine where they were on the planet. That’s because our God is a God of order, not chaos.

The same goes for our daily lives. When God is our focus, what follows is order, stability, and peace. When we take our eyes off of Him – chaos ensues. In fact, I would be willing to bet that if we looked back at those times in our lives when everything seemed to be falling down around us, we were probably not spending a lot of time in prayer, in the Word, or in church. Jesus tells us, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). When we try to do life on our own (“au naturale”), so often, the result is chaos. When we trust God to lead. When we have faith in His plan, His purpose, His will, and His way, we find order, peace, and serenity.

It’s funny. I so do not enjoy mowing my lawn, but every single time, after I do, I say to myself, “That really looks good.” Yeah. There is just something about order that brings us peace.

Don’t forget to focus on God today. Pray. Spend time in His Word. You will find peace. After all, remember the old saying, “A Bible that is falling apart is usually owned by someone whose life is not.”  

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