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I Am Not Caring For My Lawn

I have never been a huge fan of yard work. I like it to look nice but anything beyond mowing is just not something I am going to see the need for. Lucky for me, I have a wife who sees the need. Yep....lucky. for. me.

I am so lucky, in fact, that my wife and I decided our kids should be involved in the care and maintenance of yard work. We decided this because misery loves company we believe in the power of teamwork. So while my wife would yield the larger power tools (think mower and trimmer) we'd show our kids sticks that needed to be collected or weeds to be pulled. What's going to work? Teamwork!

This past weekend I was teaching my older two kids to use the lawn mower. I dream of a day when I will sip lemonade and watch the servants, or as my wife likes to call them, the children, mow the lawn. So I showed them how to pull the string to get it started, to press on the handle to propel the motor, etc. I showed them back and forth and then handed them the mower.

What I didn't show them (because I assumed too much) was what a straight line looked like. I pointed out what looked like small green mo-hawks across our lawn and had them get most of them.

But here's the thing. As much as I am not a perfectionist about my lawn, my wife is. She wondered aloud how I could be okay with what appeared to be crop circles my son had designed in our front lawn.

I reminded us both were not actually caring for a lawn. We were training children to become capable and responsible adults. We were teaching our children the value of hard work, accomplishing more together than we could alone.

It took more time to teach them to mow than it would have to do it myself. It took more gas. It took more patience. I am a long way off from that tall drink of lemonade while my kids handle it all, but we are making progress.

Who are you training, either at home or on the job or even at your church? Who are you leading along, so they can do what right now only you can do? Especially in ministry, they say leaders should be working themselves out of a job, teaching others to do. But I believe families should have this mindset, unless of course you'd like to be driving across town (or further) to mow your kid's lawns for them.
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