Putting off ’til later what you could do today

I am blessed to own a hot tub. Every year in May, I empty it, and then I scrub it out and refill it the next day. This year, I emptied it but waited a couple of weeks to clean and refill it. Big mistake.

Yesterday I armed myself with rags, wipes, sponges, bleach water, buckets, a hose, and filter cleaner. I was a bit nervous to view beneath the lid as I knew that I would see puddles of old, standing water in the various floor compartments. I was also afraid of what else I might find.

Warning: Gross Alert—what follows may disgust more squeamish readers.

Yep; half a dozen roaches and—EWWW—a dozen or more garden slugs lounged in placid contentment within the empty tub. I had to face off with each individual, nasty critter, and in my plastic gloves, I defeated the disgust-oids and rid the hot tub of its alien invaders.

Then the painstakingly tough work began. I had to carefully sanitize each square inch of the tub and under the cover. What normally takes much less than an hour took several hours.

The good news is that it is clean and free of creepy crawlies and contaminants. The lesson learned here is that I should have cleaned the tub as soon as it was emptied.

This raises the question about spiritual maintenance. When God directs you to deal with an issue in your life, do you procrastinate? Do you engage in a quick “good confession”, figuring that will hold it until you can deal with it later…and later…and later? I have, and unfortunately, these things can snowball, even to the point of—like my empty hot tub—attracting unwanted “roaches” and “slugs”.

In Chapter 6 of First of All, Pray, I wrote about the importance of dealing immediately with those things that God is targeting in your life—those things that only serve to hinder your effectiveness in prayer. If you put it off, the “contaminants” multiply. Here’s the excerpt:

“Could it be that the Lord has been speaking to you about an indiscretion, attitude, comment, or even a seemingly minor behavior in your life that you just haven’t gotten around to correcting? Don’t postpone dealing with the area which God is targeting. Why spend one more night, as Pharaoh chose to do so long ago, with the “frogs” taking up residence in your life? (See Exodus 8:8-10.) The Holy Spirit, who is kind enough to reveal these things to you (see Romans 2:4) is also powerful enough, with your cooperation, to free you from all of them as well! You repent; He provides the power to change!” (Excerpt taken from page 88; First of All, Pray: Prescription for a Nation in Crisis; © 2013–Dorothy Frick)

Such quick-to-act, tenderness of conscience has a huge impact on your prayer-effectiveness. May you be a better steward of your spiritual life than I was of my hot tub; it will surely spare you both headaches and heartbreak—and the ewww-factor!

Dorothy