January 2012

Manpower + Tools = Success... ?

When the first round of 8 inches of snow began to fall in mid January, the neighbor lady offered her snowblower. I thanked her but was reluctant. You see, I was actually excited to attack the first snow with my new shovels! In fact I had three. The third had an offset handle to relieve stress on the low back, something I need very much. Tools. Plus I had two helpers, Roman and Nina. Manpower.
Manpower + Tools = Success. 

At the first sign of snow I grabbed a shovel and began running it up and down the paved driveway. Two inches gone. Manpower + Tools! By the time the kids got home 3 more inches had fallen. Before Roman could join me I grabbed two shovels, held them side by side and started plowing away. With Roman joining me we were able to knock out those 3 inches in both our drive and the accumulated 5 in our neighbor's in no time.
More Manpower + More Tools = More Success! 

About halfway through using my ingenius tandem-shovel-plow invention a nerve in my lower back sent a message directly to my brain asking it, "Why aren't you using the neighbor's snowblower?!" My brain returned a message to my lower back, "Shut up and do your work!" Maybe I just wanted to see what I could do. I could handle this bit of winter with my trusty shovel, and if necessary I'd just add more shovels and more hands. By the time Roman and I had finished my back was d-o-n-e. Done. When we finally went inside, I described to Dina my cool tandem-shovel-plow trick but she was only mildly impressed. "Why didn't you use Mary's snowblower?" My answer, "Eh, I didn't need it." I'm not sure if she heard my lower back mutter, "Liar!!!" For the next three days I stayed close to the bottle of ibuprofen.

A week later the second 7-inch-snow arrived. I could see this going to be too much for my signature tandem attack, so I reverted to old school shoveling. My back began to complain. Just then, another neighbor parked his snowblower and walked over to us. "Hey, why don't you use Mary's snowblower? It's just sitting there ready to go." Was this some kind of conspiracy against my snow removal techniques? What's so special about Mary's snowblower anyway? I guess that nerve in my back must have bypassed my brain altogether, because before I could think my mouth said, "Sure, why not?"

It took a minute to get the knack of exactly how that thing operated, but suddenly massive quantities of snow were being blasted across the yard. That thing opened a path before me like the Red Sea, chewing up and spitting out a hundred trillion flakes a second. In the corner of my mind I was issuing a pink slip to my tandem-shovel-plow invention. In 45 minutes we blasted our way through four driveways and their accompanying walkways, etc. Now I was operating with Power!

So here's my thought. If we think we can attack the daily work that lay before us without the power of the Holy Spirit we're probably right. But if we want to plow four times as much and walk away without so much as breaking a sweat, we should use a snowblower instead of a shovel. Don't allow pride, ignorance or cute tricks get in the way of the Power God has for you!
Man + Godpower = True Success!

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you..." -Jesus  Acts 1:8