Grass...It Ain't Always Greener!!!
So, it’s a new year…again…already. And many people have made pacts with themselves and others to do better, eat healthier, lose weigh, etc…etc…etc. There are several problems with New Years resolutions - around 90% of people never complete them. Secondly, most of them are based on our perceptions of ourselves, which in turn are built upon our perceptions of other people and the lives they lead. We often look at other people and want to look like them, and live like them.
I say…these New Years resolutions are a lot like grass…
Grass…most of us either have some at home as our lawn (however large or small that may be), or there is grass nearby. You can’t go far without seeing it. The history of home lawns stems from rich aristocracy maintaining huge gardens and lawns as a showpiece of their stately manors. It wasn’t until the industrial revolution in the 1800’s that grass lawns became a household thing, as the humble and ever ubiquitous lawnmower was invented.
But there is much more to grass…much, much more. Grass as we know it is both a blessing and a hindrance. When it grows lush, it is soft under-foot, and cools the area (not to mention creates a lot of oxygen) around it. But when it is left to run wild it can get into everything and choke out an entire garden bed, or grow waist high. Some types of grass reproduce by seed that is blown every which way by the wind. Other types spread by runners and send down roots. Some grow during the cooler, wetter winter months - whilst others enjoy the heat and light of the summer months.
Yet there is this perception that green grass is always better than dried out brown, dead looking grass. Green grass is high in water content (a little like lettuce), and not as many nutrients - which means that for farm animals it isn’t always beneficial to them (and it can give them upset stomachs). However, good quality grass which dries out over a summer period is often full of nutrients for the animals. Consider hay that farmers give their sheep and cows, it is dry, it is not green and lush. Greener isn’t always better.
Hence the saying that many of us know “The grass isn’t always greener on the other side”…it is a saying that while we may wish for things that other people have because it appears that they have a better life than us. There is always a temptation to try and strive for what they have, a temptation to get a “better” husband or wife, a temptation to extend your finances to breaking-point to match the lifestyles of people you know.
Galatians 6:3-5 talks about this very thing…it says “For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For each one shall bear his own load.”
Now this scripture is not saying that we need to live our lives separately and not let anyone help us when we are in need - rather it is talking about our lives are ours and ours alone, we should bear that with humble faith and hope in the perfect will and nature of Yahweh.
What this scripture is saying is that we cannot be proud, but we need to be humble in our lives. If God has blessed us with much then we need to be humble, gracious and thankful for that. If we seem not to have as much as others, then we need to be thankful, content and gracious for what we have.
In truth, we are all nothing. We are a collection of vile sinners who don’t deserve God’s love, grace and mercy at all. If we think we are above others, by living full of our prideful selves then we are deceiving ourselves. And those who are deceived will not act in truth or love. They will only seek things for themselves. And they will go after the things that they think they are lacking - be it wealth, family, positions of influence, types of employment, relationships, lovers, technology etc.
One of the 10 Commandments (which for a Christian form the moral minimum by which we live) found in Exodus 20:17 says “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbour’s.” - The grass may seem greener over there….but you (and I) need to be content where we are, with what God has blessed us with, and whom God has blessed us with.
The Apostle Paul, in speaking to the church in Phillipi says “Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:11-13).
Achieving what Paul did is a real struggle for modern people, and especially modern Christians.
Now I, like many of you may have known real lack - like no food in the house for days, living off hand outs, second hand clothes that don’t fit properly, wearing shoes with holes in them. Paul would have been content in that moment - I (like you) probably looked around and saw that others had more and wanted that for myself.
Even now I struggle with that - and it is a psychological and attitude issue that stems from the lack I experienced as a kid and in high school - but one that God is working on.
Now the interesting part about these verses is found in verse 13, which most of us already know because it is quoted (or rather mis-quoted) everywhere.
This verse DOES NOT mean that anyone can become a brain surgeon, an astronaut, or climb Mount Everest just because God is with them….no instead it means that because God is with us, and HE gives us strength, we can endure both the times of lack and of plenty.
Our spiritual lives are not much different than the lives of farm animals…
Just like cows and sheep will break through fences to get at green luscious grass, so too we will break the moral, ethical and biblical boundaries that we should have in our lives in order to reach the things that are pleasing to our eyes. Like Paul we should learn to be content with our lives and to live humbly in them. God will give us the strength to get through the events that we will live through - both the good and the bad.