Trying Too Hard

 I was in our front yard doing some gardening in one of our front flower beds a few days ago.  It had recently rained some, and the weeds were easy to pull, so I was spending some time doing just that.  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a golf cart pulling up into the drive and coming toward me.  I knew that Rick, our neighbor, was coming to see me for some reason.  Sometimes it’s just to visit; other times he needs me to do something for him.

Rick is retired, and has difficulty getting around due to the after effects of a long-ago stroke.  He often uses the golf cart to get the mail or visit some relatives a couple of blocks away in our neighborhood.  So it wasn’t at all surprising that he showed up in our drive.

It turned out that he wanted me to go next door to his place and try to raise the hood on one of his vehicles.  He had pulled the release inside the cabin, but couldn’t figure out where the secondary latch was that would give final release.

It isn’t unusual for him to ask me to do some small thing such as this, and I am happy to oblige.  He and Sharon, his wife, are good neighbors, and are doing their best to make their way in the latter stages of life and living in spite of the difficulties.

I went with him into the garage and made certain that the release had been pulled inside the cabin.  I then went to the front of the vehicle, turned on the flashlight on my phone, and looked under the hood for the secondary latch.  It was right there in the space between the hood and the radiator, which is where I expected it to be.  It was difficult for me to reach my hand into the space far enough to manipulate the latch lever, and I don’t have large hands at all.

Rick’s hands were much larger than mine, and weren’t as nimble due to his physical condition.  I think he wasn’t able to get his hand in far enough to even touch the lever, let alone move it to raise the hood.

When I did get my hand to the lever, at first I couldn’t raise the hood even though the lever moved.  I tried a couple more times, and got it to raise up.  It turned out that the hood latch was built so that if one lifted on the lever too hard, it seemed to catch somehow and wouldn’t let the hood up.  Whether that was an intentional thing or just a flaw in the design, I don’t know.  One had to lift rather gently on the lever…then the hood would go right up.

The first couple of times, I was trying too hard.  Making things more difficult the harder I tried.  How often have you found yourself in that position in life?  Something happens that you need to respond to, or you’d like for something to happen in a certain way, and you find out that the harder you try to make whatever it is happen, the worse the situation becomes.  I like to use the term “finagle” to describe such behavior.  I know the dictionary definition of the word, but I tend to take a little different personal view of the word.  While the dictionary describes the word as resorting to deception, cheating, or swindling, it also uses the term “cleverness” to explain it.  That’s how I use the word…cleverness…we will resort to almost any means to get the results we want, as long as those means don’t conflict too much with our moral compass.

Fixing the issue of trying too hard doesn’t mean, however, that we don’t try at all.  Sitting back and letting the world go by, not engaging in anything of substance is not how God wired us.  He has outfitted us with certain talents and abilities and expects us to use them to finagle??...no, use them for His glory and for His purpose.  As it is with many things in life, there is a kind of happy medium where we are diligent and purposeful in what we do, but we don’t overdo it…nor do we sit back and just let things deteriorate.

Finding that happy medium is sometimes one of the more difficult things we as humans encounter.  It takes maturity, wisdom, and yes…even courage and strength to resist going off of the deep end one way or the other, staying the course.

When God is our guide in life and living…when our desire is to serve Him and our joy is participating with Him in the renewal of the creation in our sphere of things…then we are within His will and purpose for us.

Don’t lift the hood latch to forcefully, because it won’t work.  Don’t try to hard.  Do find joy in what you do for the Lord.  Do find satisfaction in partnering with God in your sphere of influence.  Do allow Him to do the finagling, as it were, FOR you and on YOUR and HIS behalf.  And rest in the knowledge that He is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.

 Blessings.