Flaws

We had rain Thursday night at our house. This isn’t actually a new thing – we have been enjoying rain quite often these last few weeks. But this one was different. The thunder, the lightning, the hail – all were accompanied by lots of rain on all sides of our house, blowing sideways everywhere. And then a few hours later, it happened again, so bad it woke the kids and worried the kittens.

We discovered Thursday night that the house we bought leaks. Two windows had rain incessantly dripping and another room had more leaks. We found buckets; we got some bowls and finally towels to mop things up. Thankfully we have a home warranty that should cover repairs. But the home inspection during the purchasing process didn’t find the leaks. It took a storm, a real gully-washer to discover these flaws in what seemed like a perfectly good house.

This describes our human condition, doesn’t it? A quick inspection of our lives can reveal things are just fine. We are good people. Good parents. Our lives are good. That is certainly what our Facebook posts tell the world!

When the storms come, our true character emerges. Just like the leaks in my dining room window, our flaws come out when we face storms in our lives. Our anger. Our greed, our selfishness. Our impatience. The qualities can drip, drip, drip, persistent in their presence in our lives.

The good news is that we can notice these qualities and do the work of replacing them with the qualities Christ calls us to. We can pause while the storm is raging and take a breath before we react. We can start our day centered in prayer. We can seek counseling to cope with deep stuff.

The bad news is, this is hard work! But when we pay attention, when we work toward fixing those flaws within ourselves, we allow the Holy Spirit room to move us on to perfection, to use a very Methodist term. Like the fixes to my house, it won’t happen overnight.

I pray for more, gentler, rain for our desert this week. Even more, I pray that we can each do a spiritual inventory in our lives, addressing those flaws that the Holy Spirit reveals.

See you soon.
Pastor Lynn

Three ways to access our pre-recorded service:

• From the main menu on our website click WORSHIP
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The service will go live at 9:45 a.m.