Psalm 37:2 Grass

On a hot July afternoon, I watched, appropriately socially distanced, while my 13-year-old grandson mowed our lawn. He looked tired and hot, not at all surprising since he'd been mowing various lawns all day in low-90s temperatures. He had wanted to earn money of his own this summer, and his parents wanted him to learn the value of working hard to earn that money.

I don't do hardly any of the mowing any more, because my deteriorating knee just doesn't deal well with the mechanics of pushing the "self-propelled" mower. My wife mows occasionally, but as the temperatures heat up, her body reacts poorly to the weather and doesn't need to be pushing a mower around either.

And so we offered to pay Ethan to mow our yard sometimes this summer. I think he charges us less than he might someone else, but we pay him more than he initially asked. And it's good to see him so regularly during this long season of the pandemic's enforced isolation.

We also get to see his parents, because someone has to drive the truck to bring the 13-year-old and his mower. They also do more than their share of work while he's mowing. Our son makes the rounds with the weed eater and he and our daughter in law have worked hard over the past few weeks to clean up the large amount of sticks and leaves accumulated in our near-forest backyard.

Cooter commented that July was starting to be like it normally is in Missouri. He's seeing signs on all the lawns they visit of the grass becoming sun-bleached and dry.

Like the grass, all three generations of this family are growing older. Karen and I are like the grass and vines and weeds that are declining under the summer's heat. Cooter, as a little boy, didn't really care for short pants. He would try to tug them down to cover his legs.  Now he's 35, an astonishing age for someone who was once so small.

Even Ethan and his younger brother Jude are growing older at a speed I can hardly keep up with. They'll be grown and gone and approaching the time of withering like grass themselves, long after the thresher has harvested my soul.

It happens to all of us, to the best of us and the worst of us.

Do not fret because of those who are evil
   or be envious of those who do wrong;
for like the grass they will soon wither,
   like green plants they will soon die away.

Psalm 37:1-2

Why would Ethan fret about the grass and what new challenges it's going to throw at him next week when it comes time to mow again? Our lawn is not going to suddenly develop sentience and plot to do us harm, like in that silly movie, The Happening. It's just grass. Grass does what grass does.

People do what people do. Evil people are going to do wrong, because that's the direction they've trained their hearts to lean. People who have trained their hearts toward good will do good, and should keep their minds and actions focused on doing good.

Our grass is just going to keep being grass, even after Etan mows. It'll keep being what it is until it dies. 

And it will die.

Ethan will also die. But before that time, he'll find greater things to train his heart toward. Over the past two or three years, as he's passed through those most formative waking up years of 11-13, we've all - his parents and grandparents - watched the scatter-brained boy begin to seek out just who it is God is training him up to be.

And we saw, and it is good.