I did not get to the grass until late in the day, but once I did, I got right to it. By the time the edging was done and most of the yard was behind me, the mower’s batteries would not take a charge. They had run too hot, worn down by a job that started in the heat of the afternoon instead of the cool of the morning. The backyard was half cut, and the front yard sat there unfinished, waiting.
Not enough time, not enough energy left, one more thing carried over to tomorrow’s list.
The next morning I got up and went straight out before the day had a chance to get too hot. Cut the front grass, pulled the weeds, blew off the sidewalk and the driveway. The whole job that had beaten me the afternoon before took less than an hour, and it went easily.
Nothing about the work had changed. Same mower, same grass, same effort. The only thing different was the time of day.
I have started to wonder how many things in my life, and in the life of this church, get filed as failures of resolve. A practice that keeps lapsing. A conversation that keeps not happening. A discipline that looks abandoned because it was tried three times on the same worn-out day and never once on a fresh one. Most of the time, none of that is really about resolve. It is about the hour we keep trying it. It is easy to conclude the will is missing. More often, no one has tried it at the right time yet.
I do not think this lets anyone off the hook, including me. The yard still needed cutting, and I was the one who had to get up early to do it. But it changes the question. Instead of asking why something is not working, it is worth asking when it keeps getting tried.
The grass never cared what time I mowed it. It only needed the right hour.