Little Leaks Can Become Big Problems
/About a month ago I had to do a job on my house that was no fun.
I had to re-shingle my roof. And when I say I had to do it, it means that I was the one who physically re-shingled the roof. I did not pay someone else to do it for me, though I wish I could have done that.
Inside the house we had several locations that were leaking some in the ceiling. One spot was so bad that if it rained very much at all, there was a steady stream of water dropping down. This had been occurring for nearly a year. Some of the 'small' leaks had been occurring for over a year, and for the most part were just ignored. My wife and I talked with several companies that does roofing and each cost way more than we could even think about paying any time soon. The cost of doing it myself was about one-fourth of the cost of the lowest charging company. Definitely worth doing it myself.
I was a little nervous about doing the job myself.
The roof has several sun lights, bathroom vents, a heater vent, fireplace vent, and attic vents. That is a lot of things to work around, even though the roof is not steep at all and easy to work on.
Along with that, I have done re-shingling only two or three times in the past and those times were under the supervision of someone who was experienced, and the most recent time was about 15 years ago.
After praying a lot about it, I felt that I needed to do it myself and trust God to guide my hands in the job. Looking at the job, it originally looked like a two-day job. In the end it took two days of sunup to sundown work, plus several six to eight-hour days of work to complete the job.
I was blessed one day with about fifteen college students being there to help out. Each day I had several of my own boys and one of my girls helping out. I also had a few days of some of their friends helping out.
As we began to pull up the shingles, which should not have been difficult, we started to have problems.
The shingles were stapled down, so much harder to pull up, and then we had to go through and pull all of the staples up. A very slow painful process.
Underneath of the shingles that were pulled up, we started to have to remove may different pieces of the decking that were rotted out, several of which a worker stepped on and it broke.
With a lot of back-breaking work, the job was finished. The roof is now re-shingled and is in good repair. There are no more leaks, and we have had some very severe rains to prove that.
Now why do I tell you all of this story? What is the purpose of this posting?
Glad you asked!
Looking back over time that we have lived in this house, we have seen signs of leaks for several years. There were little wet spots in several locations whenever it rained extremely hard. Since it did not leak every time it rained, or at least did not appear to leak, the leak was ignored. I did take note of it, and knew it would be a problem some day, but did not do anything about it, just left it.
One thing to note was just because I did not see the sign of leaks when it was a light rain, did not mean it was not leaking.
It was just that the attic area was not wet enough to let it seep through to the ceiling and be shown. The attic area was still getting wet and causing damage.
The damage being done was slow, but steady. Little by little the decking was being rotted away until it would fall apart and be worthless.
How does this apply to life?
Again, glad you asked!
If I would have taken time to find the leak on the roof and make the minor repairs, the major repairing of the entire roof may not have been needed.
It was in ignoring the small problems that the major problem came up. In life, there can be small problems that creep into our lives. Little things that come up and begin to create damage in our lives. Paul tells us to not give the devil a foothold. Although this is talking about holding onto anger, it can be in many other areas in our lives.
Allowing yourself to have a little taste of sinful pleasure can lead to a greater following of that sin. Each time you tell a lie, it becomes easier to tell another one. Each time you look at something you should not look at it, it becomes easier to look at it again. Each time you say something you should not, it becomes easier to say it again.
All of these things may not look that bad in the moment of here and now, but they will cause problems later in life.
Letting little sins in your life, will make room for larger, more open sinning. In the end it will pull you away from God further and further. There can come a point when you will no longer hear from God. When that happens, you begin to no longer live for God. The 'little' problem has become a major problem. As in the case of my roof, the small leak eventually caused major damage.
Starting today, be willing to throw off the sin that can entangle you. Embrace Jesus and His ways of living. If there is any 'small' leak in your life of sin, get it taken care of immediately. Do not allow it to build up in your life and cause major destruction and destroy you.
Jesus is here today to forgive you of your sins. The Holy Spirit is here today to guide you and give you strength to turn away from all sin. They will make the needed minor repairs now if you let them.
Submitted by: Tom Arn
Tom is happily married to his wife for nearly 25 years and has been blessed with eight wonderful children. He has been writing a daily devotional blog that goes systematically through the entire Bible for several years. His desire is for you to know Jesus and His Word more.
