June 27, 2011
“Oh man, I can’t believe this. I really don’t need this right now!”
I stood there looking at the water level in my pool. I have been attempting to open our pool up for the season for the last 2 weekends. The pool cover was covered with the most amount of water and foul smelling crap I had seen after a winter and needed significant pumping out – a.k.a., a weekend of work – in order to get it off. During the week I had 2 hoses in the pool for 2 days to fill it up, and now by the weekend the water level had dropped more than 12 inches. That can only mean one thing – a massive leak somewhere.
I checked out the pump house – no significant water on the ground. However, on the path outside of the pump house was a puddle of water. It could be the result of the torrential downpour we had last night, or something else more sinister. I turned and looked up the path going to the stairs to the pool deck and saw 2 tiny fountains of water bubbling up from the gravel path. My heart sank. Dang, that can only mean one thing – the outlet pipe was cracked and needed to be replaced. Sure enough, after some not too arduous digging I discovered a thoroughly shattered 5 foot long section of pipe. One more thing to do…
Earlier I had to take out our pool pump to get repaired, as it had stopped working. When I went to pick it up, after receiving a call that it was all fixed, it wouldn’t work so I had to come back later to pick it up – after he had fixed it again. Now I had to go out and buy pipe, primer, glue and joining sleeves. So, after a few hours of work I was ready to flip the switch and fire up this ol’ baby. Oh no, now the solar heating pipe was spraying water all over the pump house. Stop, fix that too. Flip the switch again. Now the pump isn’t creating enough pressure to run the system – Aaarrrrrrggggghhhhh!
All of this after the failure of the electronic ignition I installed in my old boat. I was told that swapping out my points in exchange for an electronic ignition kit would create better starting and smoother high end performance. When we put the boat in the lake – the day before I discovered the leak in the pool pipe – we almost got stranded when the boat wouldn’t start again and then would not rev up over 1800 RPM when under load.
NOT A GOOD WEEKEND!!
I know you guys can empathize with these frustrations – we all have them to varying degrees. This isn’t a wine fest though, I’m going somewhere with this…
So, is this some grand demonic scheme to cause me to fall? I don’t think so. I think it is simply an example that in this life here on earth there is maintenance required. Now, does our enemy lie to us in the midst of these inconveniences so that we begin to think that God is really not very good, we’re screw-ups and this life is just too hard so we should give up? Probably. And, are there sometimes when there is an over abundance of these problems that could be a strategy of the enemy in our lives. Sure. But I also think that we can not expect perfection on earth. Oh, I believe that there is far more life, hope, victory, strength, peace and love for us than we can possibly imagine, but it is never going to be perfect here. There will always be maintenance required.
These little “trials” try our patience, try our self control, try our hope, try our joy, etc. It’s part of life. We need to maintain our vehicles, our houses, our stuff, our self, our marriage, our family, our relationships, our work – lots of things. We encounter all kinds of trials – many of which are simply the maintenance work of life. Can the enemy still leverage these with lies? Sure, but don’t buy into what he’s selling. Life requires maintenance – we can’t expect things to be perfect, but we can walk with Jesus in the midst of these things and find joy, hope and strength.
Don’t be surprised when you encounter various trials – life requires maintenance.
James 1:2-4
“Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.” (The Message)