I was having such a wonderful afternoon last Saturday. Sure the yard needed mowed and it was already covered in leaves, but I have my one series John Deere tractor and my leaf vacuum trailer. Man Toys! As I mowed the yard and vacuumed up those leaves, I was singing along with THE Mr. Keith Green — enjoying a time of personal worship — and then bam… out of nowhere… the mower deck on my tractor disconnected and fell off in the middle of my backyard!
You have got to be kidding me! That has never happened before. Of course, it fell off on the steepest part of my yard… after 10 minutes of trying to wrestle the 300 pound deck back on the tractor at an absurd angle… I finally realized it just wasn’t going to happen.
Since I was home alone, there was just one thing I could do. Backing up over the mower deck, I disconnected the vacuum trailer, drove up to the shop garage, put the front end loader bucket on the tractor, and went to retrieve my mower deck to move it to a level area so that I could reconnect it. Of course, it wouldn’t fit IN the bucket — it was too big — so, I had to use multiple ratchet straps to suspend it from the bucket and slowly drive to the flat part of my driveway.
Well, to make a long and by now, I am sure, boring story short… I finally got it up there, got the deck reconnected, took the front end loader off and the vacuum trailer re-hitched… hey that only took about an hour and a half…
Now, my joyful time of personal worship was forgotten as I muttered under my breath about stupid mower decks and the trouble it had caused me… then it occurred to me… why would I let such a stupid thing disrupt my worship time with God? Was I alive? Hasn’t Jesus rescued me from my broken life? Isn’t the Father seated on the throne?
So, I restarted my Keith Green playlist on my phone… Keith was singing one of my favorite songs — Make My Life A Prayer To You. The first words in my ears?
Well, I wanna thank You now
For being patient with me
Oh, it’s so hard to see
When my eyes are on me
I guess I’ll have to trust
And just believe what You say
Oh, you’re coming again
Coming to take me away
I wanna die and let You give
Your life to me, so I might live
And share the hope You gave to me
The love that set me free
“It’s so hard to see… when my eyes are on me…” do you ever catch yourself looking at whatever problem or selfish situation you might be facing instead of looking to the Loving Savior? To say that I was convicted would be an understatement. “Lord Jesus, forgive me when I should be looking to You, but my eyes are on me.”
Listen, we all know, sometimes life is difficult. Not the my-mower-deck-fell-off difficult, but the I-never-expected-that-diagnosis, difficult. The, I-can’t-believe-that-person-betrayed-me difficult. The, how-am-I-ever-going-to-weather-this-financial-crisis” difficult. You know the big challenges we face in life. Here is my encouragement to you… don’t get caught with your eyes on you… keep looking to the Compassionate Savior… and trust Him. He knows. He cares. And there is coming a day when He will take you away… to be with Him forever!
Leave a Reply