Temporarily Out Of Order

Just in case anyone needs my opinion on the matter - I hate shower doors that are attached to the tub. Just sayin'. You know, if you're out there today and you're trying to make a decision - should I get my shower doors attached to the tub or not - Not.

I'm not sure whose genius idea this 'convenience' was - it's anything but. They restrict access to the tub, collect mold and gunk in their cracks and attract soap scum like magnets. And the worst of it - they pop out of their tracks as you slide them back and forth.

Yup. It's my latest frustration. My husband is gone and the shower door popped completely off its tracks. It's easy to fix (so he tells me over the phone) but of course it doesn't work quite that well for me. So I've given it a temporary fix until he gets home and can take care of it.

I'm queen of temporary fixes. Don't like the look of shower doors attached to the tub? Cover them with a shower curtain. Kids' rooms messy? Shut the door. Company coming? Sweep stuff in closets and move on.

Temporary fixes are fine - but they catch up with you. Eventually the shower door, the messy room or house - they all need the proper attention given to them.

So it is in our spiritual lives. A 'temporary fix' isn't good enough. Oh, it may keep you going for awhile, but you won't be, as my friend Beth would tell you, spiritually 'healthy'! It's like those TV commercials where the guy's hair is on fire and his co-worker is trying to get his attention and he's laughing it off as unimportant.

Webster's says that 'temporary' means 'Lasting for a limited time". So our efforts to fix something 'temporarily' are just that - limited.

The Scriptures talk about something else that's temporary. It's on the other side of this coin - we fix things 'temporarily' because we don't want to go through the hard work and inconvenience (and sometimes pain!) of fixing something properly. It takes time and effort we don't want to put into it. The flip side of that is looking at our inconvenience and hard work as temporary.

I once heard it said that short term dissatisfaction (the hard work of getting to the root of a problem) brings long term (long lasting) satisfaction - 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 puts it like this: "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal."

Don't we get that backward? Our 'fixes' are temporary - and we think of our trials as never-ending. If we do the hard work - getting to the root of our spiritual problems - we can appreciate the benefits - which are eternal.

So I guess 'temporary' can be good or bad - it's all in what you do with it.

All for Him,

Missy