May God, the source of hope, fill you with joy and peace through your faith in him. Then you will overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. --Romans 15:13 (GNT)
How we desire to be filled with joy and peace! Yet how often it seems we are unable to receive the blessing. Early last week, I was prepping the motor home for our excursion into a quiet place. One of the many tasks is the filling of the water tank. Many RVers drive with empty water tanks, believing they save money by increasing their gas mileage. That may well be the case, but I prefer drinking my water from home to taking the pot-luck, so to speak, which is to fill at the campground. My experience suggests that the difference between 8.09 mpg and 8.17 mpg on a short trip is not going to break the exchequer When that is the case, I will quit RVing.
So I placed the hose in the filler pipe and had it running at a good volume. I know it takes several minutes to complete the fill. I stepped around the rig to tend to another item; but presently I heard water splashing on the ground. I went to the hose, and the tank was not taking the water, but allowing it to spill to the earth. I removed the hose and the tank burped. I replaced the hose, and in a matter of a few seconds, overflow again. Remove hose, tank burps. I now know that the vent tube is plugged, but cannot imagine why. I try again, same result. After say the fifth burp, when I reinsert the hose, a brilliant metallic-blue mud dauber crawls out of the vent tube! Aha! She has plugged me up.
I set the nozzle to fine-stream, top power and shoot the water down the vent tube. Voila! as Pierre might say. The pipe, she is clear and the filling process proceeds in a normal fashion.
Now as I completed this task, I was thinking that in spite of our desire for the joy and peace that the filling of the Holy Spirit brings, it is too often the case that our inner being, our tank, in a manner of speaking, is filled with air, trivial and meaningless matters, that must be vented to allow room for the infilling of the Spirit. Yet we have somehow allowed the wasps of worldly cares to plug the vent, we hold onto what must be expelled, and thus fail to receive the joy and peace that should be ours.
How to correct the problem? Our faith is the jet-stream that will clear the vent-tube of the soul.
7 comments:
Great thoughts to start Sunday morning.
Terrific analogy- will be thinking about that one.
Vee, all God's creatures are here for a purpose, though in some cases I can't for the life of me see the purpose. Anyway, if one observes nature, an unexpected lesson sometimes emerges.
Shelly, one sometimes gains an insight when it is least expected.
Hi Vanilla,
Amazing how a little thing bugs up big things--wasp vs RV.
I have not checked out any of my blog friends' sites in months. Thank you for your comments even when I did not respond. Just no spirit.
John
Hi, John. Thanks for stopping by. I'm still following you; praying for you. While I was not attempting to emulate your talent for extracting spiritual applications from observations of everyday occurrences, I did think of you as I prepared this post.
That's an excellent parable from a man with the heart of a teacher.
Chuck, it just seemed that there was a parallel between the tank problem and the heart problem. Thanks.
Post a Comment