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You know how I like sayings. Here is one for today. “Watching the grass grow.” Generally speaking, that saying is aimed toward boring tasks. We might say about a movie, “That was so boring it was like watching the grass grow.”

A few weeks ago, when the temperatures were so hot and the rain showers were few and far between, the grass was not growing at all. In fact, it was turning brown and it could have been thought that the weather was so dry and hot, the last thing a household needed was a lawnmower.

This is where we all could quote the oft spoken Biblical verse, “This too shall pass.” Except, of course, there is no such verse in the Bible. There is the sentiment in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18, but not the exact words, which reminds me of another instance of a very worthy saying that is commonly quoted as Scripture, but it’s not.

A young preacher was engaged by a wonderful, saintly old lady. As they were talking she happened to say, “You know preacher, it’s like the Bible says, ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness.’” The preacher didn’t know how to tell her that her quote was not in the Bible, but, at the same time, he must be honest with her so he said, gently, “You know that’s not in the Bible.”

Not to be outdone, she quickly said to him, “Well, it ought to be!”

Anyone who has lived long enough in our beautiful part of the world knows that every year we have some dry moments. Thankfully, this three week hot and dry period came at a time when I don’t believe our crops were hurt too badly.

This combination of scattered showers, where just about everyone receives one, and the hot sunshine is very conducive to the revival of our lawns. In fact, you can almost watch the grass grow.

Sunday, a week ago, both of the churches I serve had their grass cut. It was beautiful and verdantly green, much different from the previous weeks. As far as I know, the lawn at both churches have that common kind of Bahia grass; you know the type that has those skinny, little stalks with a “Y” at the top. I believe they pop up almost overnight.

Bahia grass is a natural for the area because it can stand the occasional dry spell and come back strong. It is also the kind that many of our natural pastures have. We’ve got some members with cows and one suggested that we let his cows come over and eat the grass at the church. He said his cows would be our special “lawn mooers!” Awful, ain’t it?

Finally, there was a preacher who wanted to save his church some money so he told the deacons that he would cut his own grass if he only had a lawnmower. One of his members said, “You can have this old used one of mine. I’ve bought a new one.”

“Great,” the preacher said. So he checked the oil in the lawnmower and started to pull on the cord. It didn’t start up at first, so he pulled again. He kept huffing and puffing, pulling and sweating and the member who had given him the machine happened to stop by.

“I forgot to tell you, preacher,” he said. “Sometimes you’ve got to cuss that old thing.”

The preacher proudly told the man that he had stopped using that kind of language many years ago and, actually, had forgotten how to cuss.

The member just looked at his preacher and said, “That’s okay, you just keep pulling on that cord. It’ll come back to you!”