Thing is, its a new dishwasher. Well, its new to us. We got it a couple of months ago from the guy who reconditions them cos the previous one, twelve years old, had given up the ghost and we couldn't afford a new one.
I wasn't convinced it was working properly from the start. But it definitely isn't working now!
Despite the fact that I know it isn't working, I find myself standing in front of it pushing buttons in the vain hope it might just spring back into life. I must have done this twenty times since it packed up. Maybe I pressed the wrong thing? Maybe if I cancel the programme and start again? Maybe if I switch it off and on again? I know none of these things will work. But I try anyway.
As I was standing at the sink ( for the first time in about ten years) I was contemplating the futility of pressing buttons when it clearly wasn't going to do any good. And then I felt the cheeky wink of God smiling at me. Saying ' You do that all the time - metaphorically'.
How often do we know something is futile but we keep on doing it anyway? How often do we pray and plead and beg God to do something when we know deep down He has said no and he isn't going to change His mind.? How often do we set off down a road which we suspect isn't going to lead anywhere, but rather than turn round and come back to where we started we keep trudging along, hoping that perhaps around the next corner everything will be fine.?
I suppose partly we have been brought up with the philosophy that we should finish what we start, see the task through, commit, persevere. And of course all that is well and good. But if we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the horse is dead.......well, there ain't no amount of flogging it is going to get it to move :-)
The world is full of people who are broken and don't know how to get fixed. They keep pushing the same buttons - work, relationships, spending, partying, alcohol, etc etc - but nothing fixes the thing which is broken - their spirit. That spiritual part of us which can only work when it is plugged into God and without which we merely exist, going through the motions.
Once we are plugged in and switched on we should be much more able to discern the dead horses, the dead ends and the broken dishwashers :-)
Your own ears will hear Him. Right behind you a voice will say, "This is the way you should go," whether to the right or to the left. ( Isaiah 30:21)
Lord Jesus,
thank you that in You there is life, and life in all its fullness. Thank you that You have switched on my spirit and plugged me into the eternal power source. Let me be a channel of that power and love into this broken world. Help me to recognise quickly when I am on the wrong track, when things that used to work aren't working any more, when it is time to move on or move up or move over. And Lord, please can you fix my dishwasher :-)
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