You Make it Look Easy

After my older son saw his younger brother out pushing his plastic lawn mower beside me while I was cutting the grass, he couldn't resist grabbing the plastic mower and doing the same. I thought this might be a good time to start training my lawn-mowing replacement, so I called him over to push the lawn mower. His eyes widened and he loved every minute of it, though he struggled to make the turns and had a hard time keeping up with the self propelled mower. After we finished he said "Dad, you sure make mowing the grass look easy ... that's a lot harder than it looks!"

You know, it's really NOT that difficult, and I could have finished the job sooner if I had just done it myself, but I would have missed the opportunity to start the process of training my son if I had focused only on the expedient solution. This is true in the work place, in the church, in the family, in all of life ... taking the time to teach a skill or a concept provides priceless interaction and may teach skills that make things that initially seem difficult eventually seem easy. It may also work you out of a job ... like mowing the lawn!