My husband owns a cool zero turn radius mower. With it he mows our extensive 4 acre church yard. Recently, I learned to drive this mower. Now, one would think that after teaching myself how to ride a scooter (two wheels), I wouldn’t have any trouble riding a ZTR (four wheels).
HA!
I have tried, several times, to learn to drive this mower, with its strange steering and odd accelerating methods as well as its potential speed. Each time I got on and started to try to learn, I got scared and quickly got off.
Maybe it had something to do with the first time I tried to drive one. I quickly lost control and ended up straddling a rail road tie used in our church parking lot at the time. Maybe it was the fact that it is a fast little mower with a 62”deck with 3 whirring blades beneath.
It sort of reminds me of a Vincent Price movie, where the villain has three blades instead of the one huge one as in The Pit and the Pendulum. I can almost hear Vincent Price laughing now….
Little wonder I felt timid learning to drive this thing.
But this last weekend I knew I wanted to try again, and this time I was able to master the art of driving a ZTR. Well, I’m not exactly master of the technique yet, but at least I was able to cut out a lot of John’s big job, and eventually went along at quite a clip, clipping the grass.
I get a certain thrill teaching myself to do things. It’s one of the great pleasures of using this thing that pulsates in the top of my head or, as Hercule Poirot says, “to exercise the little gray cells.”
And I think the Lord is pleased when we use our brains as he intended when He created us. Psalms 139-13-18 says it beautifully.
“Fearfully and wonderfully made” is how King James put it. Yes, fearfully and wonderfully made is a perfect way to say it.
Intellect is a God given gift. So is the ability to have faith. With Intellect we read the Bible and have understanding. When we can’t understand, we have Faith that God will show us in His good time. It serves as a reminder that He is God and we are not. When we grasp that, those mysteries we don’t understand are a joy because they are mysteries.
Thank you, Father, for giving me an intellect that is not so lofty I become arrogant or so earthly minded that I don’t give thought to your mysteries. Thank you for making me just as I am. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. In Jesus Name, Amen.