PYW pt. 3--"Who Cares More?"

"Before"

Our house on James Island has a bayview window in the eating area of the kitchen and a window in the living room.  Each of these provide a nice view into the backyard.  However, one would never know this due to the condition of the azalea bushes in the flower behind just outside.  When my workday moved to the backside of the house, I encountered this monstrosity of overgrown azaleas that had become intertwined with vines growing under, around, and over them.

Although the lease agreement included the tenants' maintaining the yard as well as the inside of the house, it became obvious that besides a bi-annual lawn mowing, nothing else had been done to the yard.  I guess this is to be expected.  Who wants to put sweat equity into something that isn't there's?  It would be kind of like washing a rental car; it's just something you don't do.

When we lived here; while we weren't "yard freaks" by any stretch of the imagination, we did maintain a nice-looking and appealing landscape.  St. Augustine grass covered the ground like a thick carpet and we kept it mowed and the walkway edged.  A flowerbed welcomed guests as they came to either the front or side door.  With tenants it's just not the same.  Owners mow their lawns every week during the season, while tenants might mow the lawn once a season.  Owners trim the hedges, while tenants don't seem to even notice them.

"After"

As I was working through the mass of limbs and leaves that stood like a mountain on the backside of our house, the Lord began to teach me the nest lesson, and this one may have been the most powerful one I heard on this day.  As I lopped off limbs and piled them to the side, I heard the Holy Spirit speaking inside of me, "The people living here do not care as much for this property as you do, do they?"  "Nope" was my simple and to-the-point reply.  Truth is, I wasn't in much of a mood for talking by this point.  It was mid-afternoon, hot and steamy, and since I didn't want to lose any time going somewhere for lunch I had packed a PB&J sandwich that was wearing thin.

What I heard next stopped me in my tracks: "It's the same between you and Me.  I'm much more concerned about your life that you are.  I bought you."

The owner is more concerned about His property than the tenant ever will be.

We have a tendency to think that we know more about what's better for us than God does and that if fully commit to following Him that He will somehow short-change us and we will regret it.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  I've often said that if God would pull back the curtain of time and show each of us what the end-result of our lives would look like if we committed to His ways and His will that every one of us would take Him up on His offer.  Of course, this would require no faith and without faith it is impossible to please God.

This promise still rings true: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own undestanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight" (Proverbs 3:5-6).
The Lord made a HUGE investment in order to purchase us.  "For he rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom (with his blood) and forgave our sins." (Colossians 1:13-14 NLT).  If we are concerned about the biggest investment most of us will ever make, that being the purchase of a house, that we buy with mere money; how much more is God dialed-in to us since He paid for us with the life of His own Son?

The temptation to go my own way, and not fully trust God with the steps of my life, should be about as strong as the temptation to eat dirt... virtually non-existent!

PYW pt 2: "I Think I Mis-Under-Estimated This Project"

I arrived at our house on James Island a little after 10:00am.  I really thought that I would be able to complete the entire yard cleaning in a day; after all, lots on James Island tend to be small, in fact, ours is only about 3/10 of an acre.  When we lived there, I could mow the entire yard, with a push mower, do the weed-whacking and blow off the driveway in less than an hour.  Hedges need trimming about  twice a year, and so that project only took a couple hours.  I had this idea that I would be done and on my way home before dinner time.  I was only partially correct.  I was on my way home before dinner time; however, dinner time had been pushed back and I wasn't done.  Well, the work wasn't complete.  I, on the other hand, was done.

Here's the first lesson the Lord taught me that day: We tend to OVER-estimate what we can accomplish in a day and UNDER-estimate what we can accomplish in a year.

I began on the left side of our property, where my neighbor had planted some bamboo along his fence line, evidently for privacy purposes.  If your neighbor plants bamboo, eventually you'll get to have some too!  Our yard, from the fence line to the house was overrun with the stuff.  It looked like a jungle!  This guy also has trees that have never been trimmed back and I found limbs from his trees overhanging my yard to the point of touching the house.  Added to this were vines growing through both the bamboo and the trees, the result was something like cleaning out a rain forest.

What I had hoped to complete in 90 minutes became about a three hour project.  I didn't take a before picture, but here you can see the work on that side of the property once finished.  The overgrowth had pretty much killed the grass, but it will come back now that it can get some sun.

I knew once I finally completed this phase of the project that I was not going to complete the entire yard in a day.  I had over-estimated what I could get done.

It also dawned on me that I had under-estimated something as well.  Had I the forethought to take the time to drive down to the lowcountry two or three times a year, odds are the yard never would have gotten in the shape it was in.  Had I taken each Labor Day and Memorial Day, for instance, and dedicated those days to this piece of property I could have maintained it.

Spiritually, we make this same mistake.  We over-estimate what takes place in a moment of decision, like a decision we make on a Sunday during worship when the Holy Spirit begins to speak to us about an area in our lives; and, yet we under-estimate how much change can occur if we just stay faithful and obedient over time.  To put it another way, we over-estimate the moment of decision and under-estimate the power of process.

Now, I'm not in any way trying to downplay the importance of decisions; whether its a decision to trust Christ, give up a bad habit, recommit your life to Christ, or a commitment to service.  Decisions are powerful because they get the ball rolling.  Decisions overcome the spiritual inertia that tends to keep us standing still, going nowhere.

However, for that decision to have it's most powerful effect, there must be follow-through.  The apostle Paul put it this way, "continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12).

Over-estimating can lead to discouragement and defeat, if we let it.  When I found myself three hours into this project, having accomplished as little as I had planned, this tempting thought invaded my mind: "You have completely wasted your day coming down here.  You should have paid the landscaper to do it."  The truth however, was that I had not wasted my day at all.  I had accomplished something.  Had I been able to stay another day, I may have completed 90% of what I wanted to do.

Here's my encouragement for you today: instead of getting all wrapped up in what hasn't happened, revel in what has taken place in your life.  Our estimations are just that... a rough calculation of what you anticipate.  Just as a financial investment needs time to produce a profit and a diet needs time to produce the desired weight-loss, our spiritual life needs time to develop into what it can be.

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." (Galatians 6:9)

The Parable of Yard Work, pt. 1

Jesus Still Teaches in Parables

We still have our house on James Island.  The real estate bust of 2008 hit us square in the teeth, and although we attempted to sell this house when we moved to Anderson, SC, we could not find a willing buyer.  We have been able to rent the house, and so for the last several years I have been a landlord, albeit a rather passive one.  With 230+ miles between this house and me, I contracted with a local rental agency to oversee the property.

Recently, we decided to put the house on the market.  This will be our third attempt to sell it, the last one being August through December, 2012.  Of course, this means dong some work to get the house ready for potential buyers to take a look.

Curb appeal is a big deal, and so I contacted some landscaping companies for estimates to do a basic clean up of the yard.  Although it is in the lease agreement for tenants to maintain the yard, this is not going to go much further than mowing the lawn... hopefully more than once a season.  Most people do not want to work in someone else's yard, no more than they care to wash and wax a rental car.  The estimates I received for doing this work were way more than I was willing to pay, so I took it upon myself to drive to the Charleston area and do as much of the work as I could accomplish myself.

My day of yard work became a living parable to me.  Jesus taught in parables, simple stories that usually revolved around day-to-day life that illustrated a spiritual lesson.  The word "parable" comes from a compound Greek word: "para" = alongside plus "ballow" = to throw.  It means then, "to throw alongside."  I have a feeling that many of Jesus' parables came as He and His disciples were walking and would come across someone, let's say a farmer who was sowing seed, and Jesus would "throw alongside" this scene a spiritual story like the one about the farmer, the seeds, and the different kinds of soil (Matthew 13).  Jesus had a way of taking an everyday experience and turning it into a spiritual lesson.

He still teaches us this way, if we'll just watch and listen.  As I labored, He became my teacher.  I want to write down the lessons He taught me on this day, first off so I'll remember them and also for anyone who comes across this blog may also benefit.