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Lessons from my pool... pt 2

This summer I was privileged enough to get to go spend 10 days with my fantastic family in another state.  That story is a crazy one in itself where my dog had puppies and I was bringing home 4 extra kids and my husband was out of the country and not with us…  but that story is for another time possibly.  The beauty of getting to spend time away from reality and real life is awesome.  The amount of time that I chose to do it though was too long.  I had left my schedule, and more importantly, my kids’ schedule for 10 days and then had visitors for another week, it took us a month to finally get back to normalcy, again though, another time. 

We left our life here for 10 days.  Ten days our pool sat unattended.  It was hot.  I don’t know if you are aware of the record-breaking summer that we have had.  There has been ridiculous heat, no rain and straight sunlight for the majority of the summer.  It has been HOT – perfect pool weather, right?  Well leaving a pool stagnant for 10 straight days means you come home to a mess. 

I was counting on the pool to be a source of entertainment for my children and guests when we came home; instead it looked more like a biology experiment.  There were these bugs in there that had a circle body and two appendages and were swimming around.  The water was GREEN and had so much stuff floating and on the bottom of it, I was beyond disgusted. 

We left our pool standing for 10 days.  In the grand scheme of things, that isn’t that long of a time, but for a pool, that is a long time.  What happens when we let our relationship with God go stagnant for 10 days?  Does sin creep in and start producing bugs and disgusting junk all through it? 

Sometimes it is easier to say, “I am just taking a break from devotions”, or “I am on vacation” so we leave our relationship with God at home and focus on the here and the now and the world instead of knowing if we maintain it daily, there will be so much less clean up afterwards.  If we keep on focusing, daily, on Christ and what He did for us, we wouldn’t have to start from scratch. 

Have you ever read Hebrews 6?  I am now officially in love with this chapter of the Bible.  Go- read it!!!! Here is one verse that I loved, but you really need to read the whole chapter: verse 12 “Then you will not become spiritually dull and indifferent.  Instead, you will follow the example of those who are going to inherit God’s promises because of their faith and endurance.” (NLT)  

We tried to clean our pool with chemicals.  We used one of those net things and a pool vacuum (that isn’t the best).  We turned on the filter and cleaned it regularly when we got home.  We were told we weren’t supposed to fill it because there was a drought.  Ultimately, since it is such a tiny pool, we did end up draining it, bleach cleaning it and starting from scratch. 

We have hardly been in the pool this summer.  I wont go in because, 1) I don’t really like pools and, 2) it is constantly getting nasty.  We have been very busy and so the pool has been going green off and on.  We try to stay on top of it, but it is so hard.  The thing is that when we actually do want to swim, we can’t because the pool is so disgusting.  

Is our relationship with God that way?  Do we only use it when we want to?  When we are ready to use our relationship with God, do we have to bleach clean it, drain and refill it?   Think of Moses.  When Moses found out who he was, he rejected the way he was brought up.  He refused to be called Pharaoh’s Daughter’s son- he chose to live life and be persecuted and lead his people out of Egypt.  Think of Noah, he chose to build an ark when there was no water around and everyone was laughing at him.  (Read Hebrews 11 while you are reading chapter 6!!!) Wouldn’t it have been easier to say, nope, I am taking a break – I am going to just leave it for a bit and see what happens.

Hebrews 11: 1 and 3, “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see… By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.”  Have Faith- work on your faith daily.  Maintain your relationship with God so that it does not grow green and crusty and start sprouting life that you don’t want in there.  Believe in what you see as the creation around you and what you have been promised in the Bible.  Don’t let your love and passions grow cold, as I have done in the past.  Believe me, it takes a lot to restore your life back to the clear waters of the pool that you once had.    

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