I’m growing grass as I write this.

I guess that what I mean is that I threw some grass seed on the ground…and I have faith that it will grow.

It grows on its own.

I don’t know if I did it right…the sowing part…but all that seed is laying there, and I’m watering it…so it should grow.

Growing grass is a funny thing.

We had some grading work done a while back and I planted a bunch of grass on the new hillside.  It came up like a carpet.  It was beautiful…thick and green…luxurious.  I thought, “why do people complain about how hard it is to grow grass?  Look at that…just as thick and green and healthy looking as it can be.  I must be smarter than everybody else...look how good I am at growing grass.”

I’m glad I kept my thoughts to myself.

My green carpet grew…and then started to not grow….and then little by little, patch by patch began to turn brown and die.

I blame it on the soil.  I know I did everything right.

I fertilized it.  I watered it.  I watched it grow and then die.

That’s “right”…right?

The funny thing about it is that the hillside is covered up with green now…it’s just not the “green” that I intended.  There’s crabgrass and clover, some dandelions, other weird stuff…it’s thick with green but not much grass.

I guess that no matter how bad the soil is…something is bound to grow. 

It may not be what we expect…but something is going to cover that bare ground…and until we take a closer look, it’s going to be just just as green as it can be in our perception of the world.

It may as well be grass, right?

I know that in my life, when well laid plans fall through or an outcome is different from what I intended, it’s easy to get used to things the way they turn out.

“That’s just the way it is…”

But really, I should be telling myself…”that’s just the way it is….now“.

A green hillside doesn’t mean that I should stop trying to grow grass.

And when you really get down and think about it…a green hillside is still a green hillside.  I get caught up in disappointment when things don’t work out…but on a spring day, a green hillside looks pretty darn good.

It looks good no matter what the reason for the green is.

Maybe it’s God’s way of saying, “Quit your whining….so your grass died, stop moaning about it.  Check this out…here’s some clover…that’s pretty nice now, isn’t it?  Here’s some little yellow flowers….pretty, huh?  How about some grass?  You want grass…you got it.  Bam.  Here’s some crabgrass.  Nice, huh?” *

“Check that out.  I did it all by myself.  I must be smarter than the average guy, after all….”  God might say. *

I don’t know about grass.  It’s a trip to try and grow grass.  It’s a trip to try.  It’s kind of a trip to live, really.  You never know what’s going to come of it all.

Not knowing doesn’t mean you shouldn’t throw down some seed now and then, though.

 

* This isn’t some kind of direct quote.  I suspect that when and if God talks to me, his communication will be a lot more poetic and lucid.  I was mostly just trying to communicate that our plans don’t always jibe with what’s important to God…no matter how picturesque we view them as being.