A Bag of Bolts

A few weeks ago, Scott came home and told me that a friend of ours wanted to give us a riding lawn mower that he is unable to use. (The mower used to be ours….but that’s another story.) We have a pretty big yard, and the day-long commitment it requires to mow it is sometimes a lot to swallow. There have been times that we have used two mowers – one of us using each – and it still takes a good while to get it done. Since I got pregnant, though, and since Leah arrived, I have been out of commission when it comes to strenuous yard work, and poor Scott has carried that burden all himself. A riding mower, though, would help, and we were excited at the idea of getting the mower back.

Scott brought the mower home this week and revealed the catch. (There’s always a catch.) When his friend turned the mower over to him, he also turned over a bag of bolts. A bag of bolts, people. He had disassembled the mower and couldn’t get all of the pieces back the way they were. Consequently, we now have a mower and….a bag of bolts.

As I have thought about this more and more over the past few days, I’ve come to realize that really, this situation is not that unusual. It’s pretty common, I think, for things that first appear to be a wonderful solution to a long-standing problem to become more complicated and less ideal than we first believed.

And for me, this is not unlike my relationship with the Lord. I first came to know the Lord as I was in a particularly difficult time in my life. Changes abounded – not all of them good – and I was at a very broken, very desperate place. I had sought my own way of fixing what was going wrong, and in the process had only made things worse. The things that I knew – in my heart – belonged in my life had been edged out in favor of temporary, shallow “remedies.” My spirit was crushed, and I couldn’t see a way to make it through one day, not to mention day after day in the dry and weary land in which I found myself. Once I “became a Christian,” though, it seemed like everything was going to be better. It seemed, at the time, like a miraculous cure-all to all my problems. (You might be familiar with the radiant euphoria of new Christians.) What I soon found, though, was that while I had found a better way to do life, I still had to live. I still had to go to work, I still had to balance my checkbook and pay my bills, and I still had to worry about things like car maintenance and savings accounts. I still had interpersonal issues, and I still had memories of bad choices in the past. I had a better way to deal with all of that, but it was all still there. I still had work to do, but it was better than the way I had been doing it. Like a bag of rusty bolts, there were things in my life that didn’t quite fit anymore, but there were those, too, that needed to find their way into my life. I needed to study God’s Word. I needed to speak to Him in prayer, growing in faith and discipline as a new follower. Changes had to be made, and work had to be done. (Much of that work remains a lifelong project!) The temporary fixes and novice attempts at solving my own problems weren’t going to work any more. I had to get everything back where it belonged, trusting Someone who knew how it was supposed to be to make it right.

So just as we now have a better way to mow our lawn, I have – by God’s grace – a better way to do life. It’s still life, and there are still some missing and out of place pieces, but it’s not quite the chore that it once was.

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke fits perfectly, and the burden I give you is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)