October 16

Oct 16 - Today from Proverbs 16 we look at verse 20
"Whoever gives heed to instruction prospers, and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord."

Two terms come to mind this morning; preventative maintenance and damage control. Both are action terms. Both require some sort of expended energy. In this life, we must choose which of the two we intend to pursue, because everyone will be involved in one or the other. Very few people I know actually choose to live by the code of damage control. Yet, when failing to choose preventative maintenance, that is exactly the choice they make.
In order to perform effective preventative maintenance, one must learn maintenance procedures (instruction), and then actually follow the procedure (give heed), on a constant basis. The thing about preventative maintenance - people seldom get any recognition for it. It goes pretty much unnoticed. It seems to be a lot of effort for such little notice. The people who seem to get more recognition are the people who are involved in damage control. Yet, the funny thing is, a lot of the damage we see in this life is due to poor preventative maintenance. Let me site an example in the mechanical realm;
Let's say there are two identical office buildings. One of the buildings has a very conscientious maintenance man and the other a rather apathetic maintenance man. Periodically during the year it is required to oil the pumps, pulleys and motors, change the filters, check the belts, and test the coolants of the central air conditioning units. One carefully gets attended to on schedule, the other seems to be working fine so it is ignored. All of the office personnel in both buildings take it for granted that their offices will be comfortable during the warm summer months. No one gives it a second thought. Then one day the office personnel enter building two and it is uncomfortably warm. A cry goes up. The regular maintenance man is called. The main air handling unit is down and requires new parts and specialists to change them. The cost of the repair is exorbitant, but by the end of the day the temperature in the building is going down to a comfortable level. The office personnel are very happy about it - but the manager of the building isn't! What should have been a few dollars well invested in proper maintenance turned into thousands of dollars in damage control. Meanwhile, building one just kept functioning as usual. No one thought about office comfort or maintenance budgets that day. It was just another normal day.
The Lord has a maintenance instruction manual for us. He instructs us to maintain moral integrity so we don't have to go through costly damage control processes. Those who faithfully live according to His instruction seldom get recognition, but they benefit each day. The benefits are also enjoyed by those around them, but it is so expected that they are often taken for granted. These are kingdom people. These are people who are restoring life to the way God meant it to be. The church can get unduly focused on damage control (miracles), when in fact we are called to be a people of maintenance (wisdom). Miracles are God's business. Wisdom is ours. When we choose to engage in moral failure, we are making a choice for damage control. We won't always get the miracle - sometimes God has greater lessons for us to learn.
I don't know how many professional athletes practice fidelity in their marriages, because for those who do, their relationships pretty much go unnoticed. That's the thing with preventative maintenance. Today our news is overwhelmed by a bright young basketball player who chose moral failure in his marriage, and he is entering into an incredible episode of damage control. No one will be able to fully calculate the cost, both monetarily and emotionally, but I doubt that he will EVER think it was worth it.
Need a little excitement in your life? Thinking about choosing a little moral failure to get it? Stop, and consider the costs. God revealed moral law as a maintenance factor, to save us from costly damage control in our lives and in the lives of others. Don't be concerned that preventative maintenance seems to get no attention. It does. It gets God's attention, and it subtly gets the attention of those around us because we have established a piece of God's kingdom that touches their lives.