You’d think it would be simple. Just get out the mower, run it over the lawn, no more clover. Right?
Not exactly.
On Saturday, I finally decided to overcome my inertia and go at the lawn. At first glance, of course, it now looks great. All the overgrown clover is gone, and all that’s left is some nice, green (well, a little yellow in spots) grass. Problem solved!
On closer inspection, though, I can see that I’m in for a very long haul with this lawn.
As I was mowing (and emptying the grass catcher after every pass—that’s how thick this stuff was), I thought about my old house and how I struggled to keep the lawn looking decent there. I spent many Saturdays mowing and trimming and fertilizing and envying the beautiful lawns of my friends. Theirs were neat and green and weed-free. Mine was a mess. Oh, it looked OK at first glance, but up close? Blech. I dreamt of the day I’d move into a new house with a brand-new, freshly seeded lawn-from-scratch that I could be proud of.
The reality hasn’t turned out to match the expectation. At first, on Saturday, I was thrilled to see beautiful grass emerging from beneath the clover as my mower passed over it. But when I bent down to pick up a ball that my kids had left in the yard (and which had narrowly missed becoming confetti), I realized that I wasn’t looking at grass. I was looking at the stems of all that clover, now stripped of leaves.
It began dawning on me that I have an enormous amount of work ahead of me if I’m going to get this lawn looking the way I want it.
It also occurred to me again that the sin in my life is a lot like the clover in my lawn.
Just like my pathetic yard, which never got even a half decent start before the weeds began to take over, my life didn’t have a strong spiritual foundation. I didn’t turn to God until I was in my mid-twenties, long after many weeds had been firmly established.
But I thought I could eliminate them simply by mowing: trim the surface, clean up the edges, make everything look great. On the outside, at first glance, the problems were solved. But when you look closer, all that beautiful grass is really just the stems of the clover, ready to explode all over the lawn again.
I was also reflecting on how the lawn even got to the state it was. I couldn’t remember seeing any clover at all, then suddenly, it seemed, it had spread everywhere. I realized that, just like with my sins and bad habits, maintenance and discipline were the keys. Even if my lawn had begun perfectly, as I was hoping it would when we moved in, unless I was diligent about mowing and treating it, about feeding and weeding, it wouldn’t take very long before the ugliness took over and I would be left with a mess again.
Cleaning up the mess that sin has made (and is still making) in my life is going to be a long process. I have a lot of clover to get rid of, and a simple mowing isn’t going to do it. I need to start a process of killing off the weeds, preventing new ones from growing, and establishing a relentless routine of maintenance that will establish and grow new grass. This is not a once-and-done thing. It is going to take the rest of my life. I guess I’d better learn to like yard work.
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