About a month ago I replaced a wall switch. Last night a circuit breaker kicked off and would not reset. We hired “Sherlock Holmes Electrical Services.” Well, not really by that name. But the solution did require an hour of sleuthing on the part of the old guy who came to help. It is so nice to have experts around. The fault was my wiring job a month ago. It just did not reveal itself until we flipped another switch on the opposite side of the room. As the electrician pulled out of sight I realized that so often in life we think we have fixed something or gotten away with something only to have it pop back up at a later time. It is merely a matter of circumstances.
I remembered a childhood story about a little guy who, instead of putting his father’s seeds in the garden row, put them all in one hole at the end of the row. He got away with it, that is, until the seeds sprouted.
How much easier life is when we do things right the first time. Paul understood. That’s why he wrote in Galatians 6, “Make no mistake about this: You can never make a fool out of God. Whatever you plant is what you’ll harvest.” Sometimes we think this means it will become public. Not so. There are many secrets that go to the grave. The issue is not public revelation. The issue is character growth, which is far more serious. Character is all we really have in life. Material goods and reputation can be taken. It is character that counts. It’s permanent. It’s the person we have to live with when everyone else has gone away.
Written by Roger Bothwell on March 10, 2011
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org