Roots

It is so amazing the way that God can speak at any given moment and the truth that He shares with you is so relevant and real.  Today at work I (Josh) got called out for a repair that proved to be one of the most challenging I have ever encountered and here is where God spoke.

A client scheduled me to come out and repair a large river of water that was flowing from under their driveway.  I have been doing this a long time and have encountered some very tricky repairs but this one was the worst.  As I inspected the area I felt I knew what was the problem and quickly got to work to expose the damaged pipes.

As I began to dig I ran into a few roots.  No big deal, I thought; I've had roots before.  As I dug deeper and came closer to the pipe I found larger roots and eventually found them to be fully encasing the pipe I needed to work on.  Many times I would have just chopped the roots and pipes and repaired the damage.  But, on this particular repair I found about 10 wires that I really needed to not cut through.  So, with caution in mind I removed all the imposing roots to accomplish the work I needed to do.  I had found something precious that I did not want to destroy but still had to remove the problems and obstacles that surrounded them.

How relevant is this to our marriages and our spouses that we desire to draw back?  Maybe your spouse is far from you and far from God surrounded by sin and other issues?  The culture of world says divorce them, which is just like saying, "Chop the roots, the pipe, and the wires and then fix all the damage by replacing them."  But, do you really want to have to replace that which is not broken or destroyed for the simple reason of saying that it's easier.

Yea, it would have been easier for me to cut through all of it and then replace all of it.  But, for me, the wires were not damaged.  I knew that if I was careful and payed attention to my work I could accomplish the repair and not cause myself extra work.

If we will truly pay attention to the work of our marriage, even if the damage done is great, we can help our spouses remove the damaged parts without severing all that is still good.  We can cut the roots (sin, bitterness, pain, etc) and the damaged pipes (certain areas of one's life) and keep the wires (the good that is untouched and undamaged).

Your spouse is not all bad.  There is still good in them.  Your marriage is not all bad.  There is still good there.  You may have to dig through some extremely large roots to find it but don't get rid of everything just because it looks beyond repair.  You just might find something precious if you dig deep enough.

I finished the repair without breaking any wires and repairing the broken pipe.  I did it right and it proved to be my most exhausting repair.  However, doing things right is not always easy.  Many times, the right things are the hardest things.

Josh and Serena