"...then the rope broke"

After a morning of being in the Word, reading books, blogging, and lots of housecleaning to help Deb…we went to the lake to boat, read, swim, and ski.

At one point in the afternoon the water settled down until it was a flat as glass…a water-skier’s dream. So I jumped out of the boat with my ski, grabbed the rope and handle and positioned myself for a great run. Deb put our powerful tournament ski boat into gear and punched the gas. The rope grew taunt and I was thrilling as the boat pulled me to an upright postion and THEN THE ROPE BROKE. I fell backwards with a splash, the rope whiplashed and hit Deb (she wasn’t hurt) and the power and fun were instantaneously cancelled. Bummer…what could have been a glorious run fizzled into a flop in the water.

Upon examination we discovered two things…there was a knot in the rope and the rope had frayed right at the point of the knot. I had noticed the knot a couple of weeks ago but had rationalized it… “it won’t hurt anything”, “it’s too hard to get out”, “I can just let it go for now”, “I will get to it later”. But the rope began to come apart at the point of the knot and eventually it snapped and my denial, my excuses, my delays were all proved destructive.

As I later reflected on the incident the Holy Spirit quickened to my mind a passage I had read that morning in 1 John 1:10- “If we claim, we have not sinned, we make him out to be liar and his word has no place in our lives”.

Sin creates knots in my life, tangles that need to be straightened out, strongholds of the enemy that need to be fixed instead of ignored. Things seem fine for a while and I begin to think I can live with this…it’s not hurting anything…BUT a break is coming.

“Jesus, tell me the truth about me…identify the knots in my life…deliver me from denial and delay…let your Word have first place in every aspect of my life untangling the knots I tie through my doubt, desires, and disobedience.”

We DID fix the rope and had some delightful runs on a gorgeous late summer day on Lake Okanagan.

Later Pastor Stuart and Teresa came to the house and we served them dessert in honor of Teresa’s graduation from esthetician school that day! Stayed up late eating delicious cobbler and laughing at the misadventures of a wacky esthetician class.