Mowing the Lawn

So today I was mowing a lawn for service this morning with a riding lawn mower, and I have never used one of those before.  After the first few minutes I realized all my lines were squiggly, and not even close to straight. Then I remembered something that I learned about 3 years ago.

When you drive a tractor through a field, you don't watch what is right in front of you.  You watch the edge of the field you are driving towards.  This gives you a stationary spot you can aim for the entire length of the field.  I considered this concept and decided that it would work for mowing the lawn as well.  Turns out I was right.

Then I thought about how this could be applied to the gospel, and as I sat on the rumbling lawn mower I thought of making goals.  When you make a goal to do something you automatically have things to do before you get there.  I made a goal mark of getting to the other side of the lawn in a straight line.  This meant I had to adjust the steering wheel several times a second, it wasn't a very straight steering wheel in the first place, but eventually I would get to the other side, turn around, and aim for somewhere at that end of the lawn.

This is applied in the Gospel of Jesus Christ because we have to know where we are going in order to get there.  The path to return and live with our Heavenly Father is 'straight and narrow' so we have to make sure we can see the end goal from wherever we are.  Then we can progress down that path that is before us until we get there.

Occasionally we find ourselves making squiggles in our path.  This is not a good thing but we can always pray and receive strength from Christ to straighten out our paths.

"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."

--Philippians 4:13

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path."

--Psalms 119:105