Not Sure, Just Ask

Have you ever needed to do something and thought you knew how to do it and then realized you didn’t?

Then revised your plan just to find out that your back up plan wouldn’t work, so you had to go back to the first plan and do the best you could with the wrong tools and little to no knowledge or guidance?

That happened to me this past weekend with getting rid of an old, broken push lawnmower.

To get the full picture let’s go back to this weekend…

I had to cut the grass. After a lot of warm and humid weather, we had a couple of days of thunderstorms and rain.

And more rain.

And more rain.

Needless to say, our grass had grown quite a bit. Not the highest its ever been. Just high enough where you couldn’t ignore it anymore.

So, I set out to mow the grass feeling pretty good since I had finally gotten new bolts for the lawnmower seat. You see it requires three, but the last 2-3 times I had cut, I only had one.

I am not sure if the lawnmower came that way or if the other bolts had come loose in previous cuts.

Regardless, I set out. And in about 5-10 minutes, the lawnmower ran out of gas. I normally don’t check it ahead of time. I just get on and wait for it to run out.

So now I had to go get more gas. I used this opportunity to go ahead and take that old push mower to the dump. The problem was that it still had gas and oil in it.

I didn’t have the right tools to get it out ahead of time, so my plan was to just tell someone at the dump what was going on and hopefully leave it with them.

Little did I know at the time that that plan was NOT going to work. The man was very kind and understanding. Gave me instructions on where to put the oil and the gas and the old mower, but it would have to be drained first.

Not being a handyman kind of guy, I asked what the best way to do it was (since I didn’t have a siphon for the gas and was not sure how to drain the oil from the mower).

He gave me some guidance, but I couldn’t stay there and do it. So, I decided to head to the local Food Lion parking lot, found some shade, and got to work.

I drained the gas the best I could by simply picking it up and dumping the gas into a gas can. Then I set off to get the oil straight. I encountered a slight problem, there was no drain plug where the man said it should be (or I didn’t have the right tool to get it loose anyway).

I tried every conceivable way to unscrew the mower and its various parts and to pull some kind of bolt out that I thought was the drain plug, but to no avail.

I felt myself getting mad and more frustrated.

All I wanted to do was get rid of this old thing so our garage would be one more step closer to being functional.

So, then I took out my smartphone and searched for that brand of lawnmower and discovered that all I had to do was tip the mower over and let it all run out…

Imagine my face. Upper lip shifted to the left. Eyebrows raised. Disappointment written all over. It really was that easy.

I finished the project. Packed the mower back up. Took the gas can and the bucket back to the dump and disposed of everything just as I had been instructed.

It felt good to complete the project and get rid of the broken mower.

It reminded me of James 1:5, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”

That man at the dump could have been rude or laughed me for not knowing how to do this stuff, but he didn’t. My phone actually had the search results I needed to complete the task, but I had to ask.

Too often, we are scared to admit we need help or that we do not know how to deal with something. The Bible reminds us that God is always willing to give us wisdom when we lack it, but we have to humble ourselves and ask for it.

He will not make fun of us.

He will not ridicule us for not knowing how to do something.

He will actually give wisdom GENEROUSLY.

But we have to ask for it. I encourage you to humble yourselves before God, admit you need some help, and ask Him for it. You might be surprised at how He responds.

Anyway, I was just thinking…