07 July, 2016

Stay Alert!

We are in the process of major repairs and renovations to the church building where I am the pastor and today I had a little experience that got me to thinking deeply. The wiring in our building is absolutely atrocious, so while we are doing some of the renovations, I'm also replacing some wiring and running new wiring to some areas. In an old building like this, that is not always an easy task, especially since this building was built in three stages, meaning that getting wiring from one building to the next is often quite a challenge. Today was such a day. I was running three new lines into what will be our new bathroom and then wiring them into the circuit breaker box. Whoever had tightened the screws into the bars for the negative wires and grounds must have lived by the mantra that "tighter is better".  I tried for several minutes and could not get any of the screws loose. Two other men with me gave it a try and they could not budge them either. They were so tight that it was literally stripping out the heads of the screws. By this time, I've been through the ceiling in extreme heat and humidity and now working in a room with no insulation or air conditioning and I was dripping with sweat. I tried one more time to get one of the screws loose and when it busted loose I slipped and the side of my hand came across a live wire. It shocked me pretty good, shooting up my arm and jumped across and bit me on the lip. It was not what I'd call serious, but it stung me pretty well and was a wake-up call to pay better attention to what I was doing and to take the precaution needed. (I should have shut off the power to be working in the box.)  As the day went on, I kept thinking about this and the spiritual parallel that I saw. I was thinking about how many times we get so caught up in the rush and hurry of life and we drop our guard, maybe become a bit careless, even reckless and we end up getting stung. Just a quick word to my readers to remind you to stay aware of your surroundings, alert to lurking dangers and take the precautions. Don't fall into the trap of thinking, "Oh, nothing's going to happen if I do this just this one time." It does!

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