“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
Since half of my life is spent doing laundry, it was time to invest in a new washing machine. We got it home, unpacked it from the shipping box, placed it in the desired spot, hooked it up and started a load.
As it reached the spin cycle, it bounced around the room, sounding like a rolling cloud of thunder, and just about wobbled right back out the door. Our home is older so the floors are a bit uneven. We leveled the legs and gave it another go. Same result. After hours of frustration, lowering legs and raising legs and moving it all over the room, nothing changed. We tried plywood and little bumper things that go under the legs. After several days of trying to level the washer I had a feeling that we were going to spend the rest of our lives wearing dirty clothes.
Just for the heck of it, I grabbed the instruction manual and gave it a quick read. Step 1 in the installation instructions: ‘Remove shipping bolts from the back of the machine. Failure to remove all shipping support hardware can cause the machine to become severely unbalanced.’
I quickly popped up from the couch, grabbed a wrench (lol I think that’s what it’s called) and went to work. Minutes later the washer was up and running like a champ without a wobble.
Such a simple fix. As I was reflecting on the several temper tantrums I had during the last couple of days in frustration, something dawned on me.
Looking back over my life, every time I do things my way without guidance I end up frustrated. I struggle to get things balanced out.
When I take time to slow down, take out my instruction manual and read, it keeps me balanced as I reach wobble moments in my life.
The Bible is full of wisdom that is contradictory to how we are told to do things in our culture.
Romans- Bless those who persecute you.
Galatians- But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
1 Timothy- For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil
2 Corinthians- God loves a cheerful giver
Matthew- Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.
Exodus- Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work…
Just to name a few.
The devil wants to tempt us. Just like Eve in the garden… and God’s people after he led them out of bondage in Egypt… and David when he saw a beautiful lady. We have a manual but instead of picking it up to get instructions for how we should live, it sits there gathering dust and we try to do things our own way. Then we sit back and have a temper tantrum because we don’t like the results.
My loving advice to you. When we open our Bible and seek wisdom first, we would save a lot of time and frustration. The more we study and sit in silence, the more clear the instructions become. Then we can take what we learned and apply it to our lives. Once we do this, the result is clean clothes.
Live to inspire others. My love to you and my prayer for an amazing life!
The purpose of this letter is to inspire my daughter MacKynzie to live a prosperous, God loving, joyful, legacy building life. Who knows, it may help you too. Please ‘like’ if you found this letter useful and please ‘share’ if you want to help inspire others. You never know who is watching ;)