Six years ago my wife and I purchased a hot tub. The store we bought it from offered to send out certified experts to install it for $85, an offer I immediately refused . Why? Because I’m a guy! We don’t need anyone to install things for us right? Since it was a used hot tub they did not have the owner’s manual, but offered to quickly order me one, an offer I also refused. Why? Because I’m a guy, I don’t need no stinking owner’s manual! So, the hot tub was delivered and I went to work installing it in our basement. I got everything hooked up quickly and efficiently, so efficiently in fact that I had five pieces left over when I finished. We filled it up with 300 gallons of water and everything worked perfectly. Needless to say, I was quite proud of myself. When I returned to the hot tub later that night, however, do you want to guess how many gallons were left? Yes, that’s right, ZERO! Let me tell you, its really fun to call your insurance company to explain you flooded your basement because you refused to get help installing a hot tub.
We’ve bought into a worldly mentality that we have to accomplish things on our own, or in a certain manner defined by our society. Its a mindset that often leads us away from closely following God in our daily lives. Instead of listening to the expert on all things, God, we try to do our own thing, with results often not unlike my flooded basement. Jeremiah 17: 5-8 does a terrific job of laying this out.
“Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord.That person will be like a bush in the wastelands; they will not see prosperity when it comes.They will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.” “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
I think most of us have discovered that trying to do our own thing, or listening to the siren call of the world around us, seldom works out the best. Yet, we continue to do it out of the belief that somehow we’ll discover some type of extreme euphoria. The reality is friend that there is nothing better then the joy that comes from God. Nothing can ever surpass the gift of eternal life He gives us, and there is no better plan for life then the path laid out by the architect of the universe. Stop going it alone and/or listening to the world, and start closely following God in all things.
