What Makes Your Life Inefficient?

 

Mechanic repairing the puncture while behind my two kids playing on the sand.

Today morning, after sharing God’s word with the church, I was in a hurry to attend the memorial service of my relative. When I got on my bike, having my youngest son sit in the front and the eldest one on the back, I realized there was something wrong with the back tire. To my disappointment, the tire went flat because of puncture.

Since there was no repair center nearby, I had to push my bike to some distance. My kids too helped me in pushing the bike. After burning many calories in my body, I was exhausted and so were my kids.

With great difficulty, we finally arrived at the repair center. As I was already late, I requested the mechanic to fix the tire as soon as possible. Thankfully, he promptly attended my problem. He pulled the tube outside the tire, filled it with air and pushed it into the water tub to check from where the air was leaking out.  

Within a moment, I saw bubbles coming out of a very small hole. You know, the hole was so small that it could not be seen with my naked eyes. It was as if it was poked with a needle.

As the mechanic was fixing the puncture, I thought looking at the bike—the bike is strong, the engine is in good condition, the tank is with sufficient fuel, yet this very small hole in the tube had brought this big bike to a halt. How a small hole can create a big problem!

What makes our life inefficient? What causes big problems in life? What ruins the serenity of heart? What wastes our life?

This is what I have generally observed—it is not necessarily big sins that make our life inefficient; it is mostly those small sins that paralyze the efficiency of life.

Many of us see murder, robbery, drunkenness and adultery as big sins. We judge ourselves as nice folks based on not committing these so-called monstrous sins.

But what about sins like temper, bitterness, envy, lustful thoughts, greed, white lies, loose talk, negligence and laziness? The tragedy about these sins is that they are not seriously considered as terribly wicked.

How easily we ignore such sins! How casual our attitude is toward these evils! O, these are the vices that brings the efficiency of life to a halt!

Interestingly, most of the sins about which the Holy Bible speaks are such sins that appear quite little to our perspective. But it is these small sins that ruin the peace in our heart. It is these little vices that spoil our day. It is these minute evils which bring enormous troubles in interpersonal relationships. It is these small sins that make our life weak, inefficient and unproductive for the glory of God.

Let us, therefore, not ignore any sin. May we be even more careful with these little sins which blind our heart to belittle God’s holiness. Let us grieve and repent over such small sins, for the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin (1Jn. 1:7). Let us cry out to God to deliver us from these little vices. Let us discipline ourselves, by God's grace, in not permitting these sins to thrive, making our life inefficient.

Be careful not to let “the little foxes that ruin the vineyards” (Song 2:15).

Related Articles:

• Sin is Sin
  
  _______________________________

Enquiries:

cstephendavid@gmail.com (or) stephen@tents-india.org