Central Abbotsford

Do you know how often you need to replace a lawnmower blade? I learned this week that I didn’t.

Various Google searches have led me to the conclusion that, with proper maintenance, a lawnmower blade should last for about 3-5 years of usage. Now, the first caveat to this is that I have no idea whether that’s true. Any lawnmower experts at Central Abby are welcome to correct the conclusions that I have drawn from my limited and uneducated research. The second caveat is that I have not properly maintained my lawnmower. The way I treated it, I’m probably lucky it has never exploded.

That said, it has been faithful despite my neglect. For 16 years of use, with only an occasional splash of oil and a halfhearted attempt at sharpening now and then, the trusty mower has indeed run like a Deere. Until last weekend, when the thing just wouldn’t start. Apparently you can only get a decade and a half out of these things without maintaining them in any way before they give you trouble. Who knew?

Now, obviously, the blade wasn’t the reason that the lawnmower wouldn’t start – that was a dirty carburetor. But, when the repairman was inspecting the mower, he noted that the blade was exceedingly dull and warped. Unsurprising, I suppose, because it’s been there since 2009. When I picked up the mower, he asked if I’d noticed a lot of clumping of grass rather than clean cuts. I was a bit reluctant to admit that it’s been that way since probably well before COVID. I’m sure by now any lawnmower experts are too disgusted with me to even offer any advice. Fair enough.

All right, to the question that gets asked around this point in each of my newsletters – what’s the point of this story?

From outward appearances, my lawnmower blade was doing the job. It was faithfully spinning around at 2500 rpm or so, bashing into grass and breaking it through brute force if not precision. But it wasn’t being kept up. It wasn’t being sharpened. And the fact that it wasn’t being cared for meant both that the blade was actually in really rough shape, but the whole mower was headed for a breakdown.

When Jesus told his disciples the parable of the soils, the third type of seed that he spoke of was that which was strewn among the thorns. The thorns, representing the “cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches” grew up and choked out the word of God in the ears of the hearer. When I have read this parable, I have often focused only on the “deceitfulness of riches” when interpreting it, but Jesus speaks of more than just that. The “cares of this world” are many, and include the desire to look as though we have it all together. 

The gospel of Jesus Christ, however, never requires us to have it all together. What it does require is an admission that only the risen Christ did “have it all together” in that He lived the perfect life and bore the shame and punishment that we deserve. If we truly believe this in our hearts, we will live a life seeking to honour Him in all that we say and do.

How do we honour Him? In John 14:23, Jesus said “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” We show our love and honour of our Saviour in obedience to His word. But the weight of the Scriptures tells us that this obedience is not something that comes naturally to us. It only comes supernaturally.

That said, this obedience also does not come without our own effort. As one of my favourite passages of Scripture (Philippians 2:12-13) makes clear, we are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in us, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. What does this look like? At minimum, it is regular communion with God through His word and through prayer. He is our Creator and Redeemer – we are called to get to know Him through the means He has ordained for revealing Himself! Let this be an encouragement for you to persevere in your reading and study of Scripture and your prayer life.

I hope that none of us treat our walk with God the way that I did my lawnmower – where there is an outward appearance of functioning that masks an inward reality of a lack of care and concern that is inevitably going to lead to disaster. Jesus calls His people to “go and make disciples”, which means that every Christian is a disciple. At no point during our lifetimes do we graduate from discipleship. If we do not maintain our walk – if we do not work out our salvation in fear and trembling – then we should not be surprised when we cannot recognize God working in and through us. Let Him sharpen you through His word, so that your blade may cut through the thorns of the world cleanly.