Full Throttle

(Before I start my post, I want to say that this picture is my husband, Jimmy, trying to get as much mowing done as possible before the storm hits! My Dad is in the background, trimming the grass around the new trees. It was taken the same summer as the story in my post.)

Two summers ago I was visiting my parents and grandparents at their farm in Saskatchewan. It was a busy summer, and the farm yard was in need of some work, so I decided to surprise them by mowing their huge yard. I waited until my parents went to run errands and my grandparents had their afternoon nap, then I got out the old ride-on mower. After considerable difficulty I managed to get it started. I mowed for a few hours, very frustrated with the fact that the old mower hardly had enough guts to make it up the slightest hill. Not only that, it wasn’t mowing well at all. It left patches of long grass all along the paths that I was mowing, and I kept backtracking to try to get what I missed. It was a frustrating experience. My Grandpa eventually came out of their house, not looking very pleased. I shut off the mower and tried to explain my wonderful, good deed that I was doing for them. As I was telling him, his eyes wandered over the shoddy mowing job I had done so far. I informed him that they should probably consider getting a new mower and described the great extent to which I had gone during the past few hours in order to mow such a small area. Being a man of few words, he just turned on the mower, moved a lever up that said, “Throttle,” and said, “That should help.” The sputtering, half-dead lawn mower roared into life. When I pushed the gas pedal, it took off so fast that I almost flipped over backwards! I had been mowing all that time at half throttle!

In terms of my Christian walk, I have operated for much of my life at half throttle. For too many years, I puttered along, feeling like I was expending every ounce of energy I had but not getting very far, even backtracking and going in circles now and then. Often, I would stall out completely and it would take awhile to get moving again. There are some things, as Christians, that can stall us from moving forward. Some of these can include:

• Unconfessed sin


• Living in the flesh, rather than in the Spirit


• Wounds from the past that need healing


• Unforgiveness


• Not spending adequate time daily with God

There are probably more things that could put a person at half throttle, and if you feel that you are sputtering a bit and need a boost, then go to the One who will tell you the truth. In the same way that my Grandpa fixed the problem because he understood how the mower operates, so God knows us each individually and He knows what we need to move forward and thrive as believers. Believe me, it is much better to be moving ahead full throttle! I am so thankful that the Lord, through the truth of His Word, has flipped my throttle switch. Until that moment, I truly didn’t know what I was missing! If you feel like you are walking with a heavy load, if you feel like something just isn’t quite right, if you feel like you are expending tons of energy and not getting very far… Then you probably need the Ultimate Mechanic, your Creator, to turn up your throttle.