We live in a world of big thrills, new and improved products, and the adrenaline rush. It’s hard to do the simple basic little things that keep our world going. Rather than repair, we throw away or sell stuff in a garage sale and then go get a new and improved version of what we had. This is especially true in the world of high tech. Why do maintenance when we will replace the product in a year or two anyway.

    I’ve been intoxicated all my life with the next newer, bigger, better, whiz-bang thing. I don’t like things boring. I don’t sit still very well. I want a new challenge, a taller mountain, or a new opportunity. To feed this “can’t be bored” frenzy, I have a tendency to leave messes and cut corners on routine maintenance. Under the pressure of the moment, I can get it done and everything works out okay…most of the time.

    We recently had humongous (that’s an immeasurably large amount to those trying to find the word in Webster's Dictionary) amounts of rain. During the storm, the cockpit of my small sailboat filled up with water because leaves clogged the drain. The boat tipped back and flooded the rear hatch with water until the inside of the boat was over half full of water. This of course happened on a Saturday. On Sunday, at 1:35 after preaching two morning services, they called and said, “You have to move your boat to higher ground—the lake is going to rise 10 feet in the next 24 hours.”

I’ve been intoxicated all my life with the next newer, bigger, better, whiz-bang thing.

    I was supposed to preach a 4:00 service. The boat was 50 minutes away. It was another 40 minutes back to the church building. Of course the boat was worse than I could imagine. The tires had gone flat, lost their seals and couldn’t be inflated. The boat was so full of water that we had to hand pump and hand bail for nearly an hour. Then we just drug it on metal rims to the highest spot. I made a mad dash to the church building, threw on clothes, and preached with a very questionable aroma.

    Today, two weeks later, my son and I spent the Fourth of July cleaning up mildew, washing out mud, throwing away cushions, and putting on tires. All of this because I neglected routine maintenance. If I had replaced the cover on the boat during the winter none of the water would have gotten in the boat. If I had replaced the tires this spring, I wouldn’t have had a problem moving it. I ended up spending many hours of work because I neglected thirty minutes of routine maintenance.

    Most of us want to live on the mountain peaks of spiritual experience. We flit from worship fix to spiritual experience and back again. In the process, we forget the most important dynamic of a powerful spiritual life: routine maintenance. You know, the basic essentials like daily disciplined prayer, scripture reading, simple deeds of kindness intentionally done to bless others, and honest self evaluation. This neglect leaves many of us vulnerable to Satan’s attacks. We the pressure comes, everything falls apart because we have neglected to do a little routine maintenance.

    So use my irresponsibility with my boat to be your reminder that Satan wants to sink your ship, too! But with the Lord’s help, you can keep your ship from harm with a little routine maintenance.