Lessons from Leaks

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin (Romans 7:24-25, NIV).

So this afternoon I ventured into the murky and twisted world of plumbing. There was a leak coming from under my dishwasher. Once I got my considerable girth into the cabinet next to the dishwasher, I saw where the leak was coming from–the drain hose. I got some ptfe tape and taped it up and then reinforced that with the universal fixer of all things, duct tape.

Of course, the only way to really test it fully was to run it. So I loaded it up and started a load. I watched the hose. No leak. I was actually pleased with my work. The leak from the hose was completely stopped. The repair would buy me some time to get a replacement hose.

BUT! My daughter Rachel noticed that there was still water coming out on the floor behind the dishwasher. No matter how hard I looked I could not see it, but it was undeniable. I had fixed one, but missed another. In the words of Marvel’s hero Luke Cage, “Sweet Christmas!”

As I contemplated my predicament, I discerned a clear spiritual parallel. That is often how it is with dealing with sin in our own life isn’t it? No sooner do we get one problem fixed that we find another one. Kind of like an onion, when one layer is pulled away, there is another underneath. The more we grow in the image and likeness of Christ, the more we see that there is so much more that needs done to become so! If we are not careful, we can lose sight of the grace we have and the progress we are making and sink into despair at how ineffective we seem to be and at how deep sin runs in our hearts. Remember grace is not only the thing that makes us right with God, it is the only thing keeping us right with God. And with Jesus, we have all we need.

So celebrate your successes. Confess your failures. And then let God’s grace pick you and up and travel in the joy that what you cannot do Jesus will do, until to you everything He has promised you to be.

Now if only the same could apply to my dishwasher….