Beauty surrounds us, but we usually need to be walking in a garden to know it - Rumi
It’s chaos in the street outside; there are deep holes everywhere. No-one can get their cars off the driveway and even if they could there is no way they could drive along the road. The Gas Board are renewing the main supply pipes for the road. It seems the old metal pipes are wearing out and need to be replaced by new seamless plastic ones. There will be more upheaval tomorrow when they dig trenches across our properties to join us to the new main supply. Oh joy! I am not sure why they need replacing now as the gas is flowing quite happily through the old pipes, but there.
In a way I suppose I can relate this renewal of gas pipes to our life. Our old life flows as if through the old pipes as it has always done but there are cracks and joins which cause obstructions leading to so much trouble. This is why we need the new seamless pipes since those obstructions represent our sinful way of life, our love for the material “good things” of life. Lent then is a good time to reflect and to replace the old worn out life with a new and better way. And how do we find that way? God has promised that if we truly repent of our sins He will forgive us. Then, with the burden of sin lifted, the new life can flow through us just as the gas will flow smoothly along the seamless new pipes.
3 Comments
2/3/2015 06:42:45 am
That is a lot of disruption or bother on your street and in your life for a while. I wonder if we might consider that the new gas line may be symbolic of the life of Christ and we are not able to connect to that line on our own. We are connected through the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit working in our lives. The power of sin is a disruption and a bother all our lives. We are always in need of repentance and returning to the Lord; our Lenten refrain. But instead of the death we deserve, we receive the gift of life through faith in Christ who continues to love, forgive and heal us. We live each day in that grace and Good News.
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Steve Givens
2/3/2015 07:21:50 am
A new and creative take on "pouring new wine into new wineskins." During lent, we need to take a look at our lives and see what old systems need to be replaced....do we have people, activities, and ways of going through life that need to be dug up and replaced??
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Kathleen
3/3/2015 09:12:27 am
Oh how I can relate to this Blog, Peter! Isn't it so true, that often the decision to replace "old with the new," is not left "up to us?" God knows our need and is right there to guide us forward to make the necessary changes. How good is our God!
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AuthorI am an Authorised Local Preacher in an Anglo Catholic parish church, in the Diocese of Essex UK Archives
February 2022
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