Tie down the load

I was driving home from grocery shopping one afternoon when I noticed that the road was blocked in the round-about ahead.  Not having any other options I slowly drove ahead to see what was halting traffic.  As I arrived at the round-about I realized that we were not stopped by some construction project or some city maintenance vehicle.  We were all made to wait because some guy had not tied down the load that he had just picked up at the home improvement warehouse.  Apparently he had stacked up some twenty or thirty sheets of plywood and the lateral inertia from making the turn was more than enough to send half the load flying off the side of his work trailer.

So there we all sat as he and his friend loaded the sheets one by one.  But what surprised me was the fact that they just took off again without doing anything more than just putting the plywood back how it was when it fell off in the first place.  Also, as I navigated through the intersection I could see the truck and trailer speeding away with the same hurry that probably caused the original mishap but not the slightest adjustment was made to prevent a repeat incident.

And this reminds me of our spriritual life.  We are all sinners and experience our falls on a regular basis.  We ask forgiveness of the Lord for what we have done but have we thought about what needs to happen in order for the incident not to repeat itself?  Do we, like the driver of the truck, just put things back in place like before without asking, "Maybe we ought to tie this down."  Maybe you and I, along with our petitions for pardon, need to ask the Lord to help us and show us what needs to be different.  Because if Christianity is only about forgiveness but doesn't include life change then it's a pretty useless religion we have constructed for ourselves.  The problem is we are sinners and we need forgiveness but we also need healing.

I John 1:9 says "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins" but it also goes on to tell us, "and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."  Today God wants to forgive us our sins, but He is also calling us to seek Him so that He can change our lives and tie down all those little things that get away from us.