I will never forget the day my dad brought home the new lawn mower that was to make my life miserable forever! Out of the box it came with its 100 foot extension cord… AN ELECTRIC LAWNMOWER!!! From that day forward until I went into the Navy that mower was to continually be the bane of my existence. Every time I had to mow the lawn that extension cord was forever getting in the way and the fear of the dreaded result of “cutting” that cord made the job a frustrating nightmare. In short… I hated it!!!!
Well, what a sense of humor our Holy Spirit has. As I was studying the Book of Galatians, when I came across that very familiar verse I was surprised to have a picture of that infernal lawnmower cross my mind. And the more I thought about it the more sense it made…
Gal 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control.
We, in fact, are that electic lawnmower. Just like that mower needs to be plugged into a power source, so we need to plugged into our “Source.” While electric current flows down that cord to power the mower, the power of the Holy Spirit flows down our spiritual cord to empower His Gifts in us. And just like that extension cord getting wrapped around trees or bushes, our spiritual cord is long and can sometimes, due to our inattention, become entangled with the cares of this world. And if we aren’t paying attention it can get frayed or even cut; shutting off not only our connection but the peace that connection brings to us in this chaotic world. I have had many hours tending that cord on Saturday mornings, and likewise I have had many hours learning to tend my spiritual cord that keeps me connected to the vine.
When we don’t keep a spiritual eye on “The” source of life it can quickly get cut off by our inattention. We need to continually watch out for the entanglements of life in this world that can cause our power source to get interrupted. And I can tell you from experience that when that cord gets cut it stops everything until the repair is made. And as we go through life, just like those taped repairs to the extension cord, there are repairs to our spiritual cord that are constant reminders for us to tend our relationship with the Holy Spirit.
How long is our spiritual cord? We have no way of knowing. But unlike the electirc cord that only provides us power to mow the furtherest reaches of the lawn, the length of our cord is endless. And just like the lawnmower converts that electric power to give the lawn what it needs, so our spiritual cord delivers through us what the world around us needs. How far will it reach and who will it touch? We may never know. Perhaps that preacher delivering the gospel never realized how it was impacting that insignicant man standing in the back that just wandered in… but we do because of the impact D.L. Moody had on literally millions of people he never personally knew.
Yes, our power cord, when tended, will deliver the fruit of the Spirit to enrich the world around us as well as the places to which the Holy Spirit leads us. Our job is to ensure that we don’t allow the power to be interrupted! Today an electric cord may not be involved, but you still have batteries and you need to keep them charged if you want to make sure the task at hand gets completed without delay.