Give and it will come back to you

I’ve always hated lawnmowers.  I don’t hate mowing.  I hate having to own a lawnmower.  They are always breaking and you have to service them and they bite.  I have a love-hate relationship with them.  I don’t love them and I do hate them.

So when I bought my first home 10 years ago I needed to get a lawnmower.  The days of dorm rooms and apartments were over.  I was into the homeowner phase of life.  I didn’t know where to get a lawnmower.  I didn’t know much about them.  (I still don’t.)  So my dad bought me a lawnmower.  Doesn’t that just sound right?  That is what dad’s do.  It was a nice mower too.  He bought it used from a John Deere dealership.  Wonderful push-lawn mower that cut the grass perfectly.  It’s still the most expensive mower I’ve owned.

I cut the grass with that mower for a season.  The grass quit growing (when I still lived in Nebraska, Florida grows year round.  ugh.)  and I put the mower in my garage.  I went out the next spring and started it up.  I mowed with it a few times and then it quit working.  Apparently you are supposed to “winterize” mowers or at least add oil.  That mower died.  Well, I killed it.

So I asked my friends their advice on lawnmowers.  The advice that I went with was “buy the cheapest mower you can find at walmart.  Mow with it until it quits.  Then buy another cheap one.  All lawnmowers break down anyways.”  I bought the cheapest mower I could find at walmart and mowed with it for a few seasons.  It died.  I bought another one.

Then we moved.  My lawnmower was in a moving truck.  If you’ve moved you know that everything in the moving truck decreases by value in half.  The mower was already half dead.  So I went to walmart and bought another cheap mower.  It worked for a while and died.

I knew I had to make a change.  So I asked my friends for more advice on a mower.  This time I wanted to buy a nicer one and see if I could get it to last longer by taking care of it.  So I asked people where they would buy a push mower.  Sears.  Ooh!  That’s a good idea.  I went to sears and found out a lot about lawnmowers.  They have three different levels of mowers.

Top of the line - Red mowers.

Middle - Black mowers.

Bottom - Grey mowers.

I decided that I was done with cheapies.  So I looked at the black ones.  They were beautiful.  Black motors on black decks.  Pristine.  I decided on the model and then had to make a choice between a push one and a self-propelled mower.  It was about $50 more.  I decided that I didn’t need it.  I’m young and strong.  I have more muscle than money.  So I bought this beaufiful mower.

I loved mowing with it.  I was hoping people would drive by to see how wonderful it was.  If it were today I would probably have posted some selfies with the mower.  It was a wonderful time in my life.

One day my neighbor came over.  Her mower had broke.  It had probably broke because her grass was always way too long.  She did the unthinkable.  She asked to borrow my mower.  She was a single mother raising 3 girls with very little money.  Her life was tough and her ex-husband didn’t send support.  If I was a real man I would have just mowed her lawn for her.  I didn’t.  I did, however, let her borrow that beautiful mower.

I watched through the little slit in the blinds to see her mowing with it.  I’m a loser.  I was worried.

Since I had let her borrow it one week, it had become a habit.  That mower was now mine and hers.

One day I went out to mow.  I opened up the garage and noticed that the mower was broken.  Catch what I wrote there.  Just from looking at the mower I knew that it was broken.  That means it’s REALLY broken.  I turned around and noticed that my neighbors lawn was half mowed.  Yep.

I was furious.  I threw a little pity party.  I passively-aggresively asked my neighbor if she was okay.  You know I was just glad that she didn’t get hurt when the mower….uh….malfunctioned…when she hit something with it….and stopped mowing….and pushed the broken mower back in the garage.

I went to walmart and bought another mower.

Then we moved again.  The lawn mower was half dead already and didn’t survive the moving truck.  I mowed with it a few times and knew that, once again, I would need to buy a mower.  I’m not great with math, but I think that’s 1,000,000 mowers purchased, by me, in 10 years.  I asked a friend where I could go to buy a nice used push mower.  He told me, “oh I have one that’s not being used.  You can just have it.”  He brought it over.

It was a sears mower.  This one was red.  And it was self-propelled.

I told this story to people.  One person said, “Well, I hope you learned your lesson.”  I assume they were implying that I should no longer lend out my mower.  No.  The lesson that I learned was.

Give and it will come back to you. (Luke 6:38)

Tim Boyd

Lead Pastor, Westside Christian Church - Bradenton, FL