One of the joys – yes, joys – for me is to do the yard work around my parents’ house. I’m no landscaping expert, but there’s a good feeling to doing gardening, trimming, mowing, and digging in the warmer months. Maybe it’s being outdoors in nature, maybe it’s the satisfaction of building or putting a mess in order. Well, today I think it was both – it was one those days a long time a-comin’. The grass in the back yard was getting deep.
So, I started mowing, and when I was done in the front of the house, I looked around. Now, in this yard, we have these weeds … well, to make a long story short, they fan out and lay low, so the mower doesn’t really get them. And at the edge of the grass they spread out into the sidewalk space. For a long time I’ve ignored them, and so, as you might imagine, the sidewalk has been shrinking. Today, I decided, “That’s it. They’re going.” Today, I decided to claim back the sidewalk space.
Today, I did the edging.
I took the weedwhacker and trimmed all the edges of the sidewalks around the house. When you do the edging, you have to go slow – you know, a few wandering moves and you cut up the lawn. And it adds to the clock, too. It probably tripled my mowing time. But the yard – even with the crabgrass – looked beautiful when it was complete. I never knew we had so much sidewalk.
Anyway, when I was finishing cleaning up, my father opened the front door of the house, looked around, and said:
“A complete job.”
Then, for the first time in as long as I can remember, he made me lunch.
Why did God raise His Son up from the dead? Why did He seat Him at His right hand and give Him all that is His? Why does He serve His Son?
Because Jesus always did the edging. He always did a complete job.
“I have glorified you on the earth; I have finished the work which you gave me to do. And now glorify me, O Father, with yourself, with the glory which I had, before the world was, with you.” (Jn 17:4-5)
It’s easy to “mow the lawn” in life. It’s easy to do “good enough” and walk away. But if you want to be raised with Jesus, then that won’t cut it. You’ve got to do the “edging” in life, too. You’ve got to complete the job. It’s more work and more time – but the reward is worth it.
When you complete the job, your Father will serve you.