Over the winter, a commercial lawn maintenance customer asked for my assistance with re-landscaping their property. A faulty irrigation system had been one major reason for the need to re-landscape. Seventeen broken lines were identified! As we began to revamp sprinkler heads and fix cracked lines, I thought of the similarities of repairing a SPIRTUAL IRRIGATION SYSTEM.
If you’ve ever repaired a broken pipe, you know it can be quite a tedious process. As expected, you first have to find the source of the leak. (It’s often not just where water is coming out.) After turning off the water to that line; you then have to drive to a store and purchase the right sized pipe, couplers, pipe glue, and pipe cutter. Once a reasonable work space (around and under the leak) has been dug, then the messy process begins. All the excess water, mud, and dirt has to be removed, so that you have a clean dry surface to work in. The cracked or damaged area of pipe has to be cut away. Next you glue both sprinkler pipe ends (1 inch from lip of pipe end,) inside of two straight couplers. Then a piece of repair pipe is fitted into the length of the cut you made in the sprinkler line. Before gluing it into place; you first have to put the cut piece into the coupler dry, to be sure the fit is correct and not bowed. Pieces are then glued together and later tested before the hole is re-filled. I’m tired just telling you about it!
Our Bible offers over three hundred references to water, and the word is used symbolically to demonstrate quite a few facets of God’s power. One of its first uses was that of cleansing and ceremonial washings found in the books of Exodus and Leviticus. Water was used to destroy the earth, with the world-wide flood, (described in Genesis 6-9.) In Psalm 24:3-4, we find King David proclaiming that only those with clean hands and hearts can stand in God’s Holy place. In Matthew 3:16, after Jesus came up out of the waters of baptism, the Holy Spirit settled upon him. After beginning his earthly ministry, in John 4:14; Jesus offered a woman a drink of living water that he promised would satisfy her thirst eternally. In Revelation 21:6, Jesus says, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life.” That river of life is then described in Revelation 22:1 as part of our heavenly home. (“Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.)
In essence, water as described in scripture represents TRUTH. We know that Jesus declared himself to be THE way THE TRUTH and THE life (John 14:6.) For the last two thousand years, faithful men and women have poured out their lives, sharing the awesome TRUTH of Jesus Christ with a thirsty world. All of us as believers have been called to share this living water with others as part of God’s World-Wide Spiritual Irrigation System!
Pastors and Missionaries can be thought of as pulsating sprinkler heads (shooters,) faithfully distributing God’s word to his people. Evangelists might be seen as autonomous portable sprinklers capable of hooking up with local water sources and hosing down a community of believers with God’s Truth. A wide variety of other ministries such as the arts and media can share in widening the coverage of God’s truth. However, most of us are called to serve in churches, basically doing our work underground as pipe-work or conduits of God’s truth.
Thank God his Spiritual Irrigation System never wear-out. Even if we, as his sprinkles and pipe- work; burnout, fatigue, or even become exhausted, God is going to get done what he needs to have done. So how can prevent a pipe-break? Jeremiah 2:13 says, “For my people have done two evil things: They have abandoned me— the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all! (NLT)” What are the things that cause a break in the irrigation system?
First, NORMAL WEAR AND TEAR causes PVC pipe to become brittle and break. Using the spiritual analogy the more hardened our hearts become toward God, the easier it becomes to crack and be ineffective for God. Second, PRESSURE from crowding tree roots crack lines Third, Pipes can also be PUNCTURED, as with an edger. (Not that I have any experience with that!) And finally, EXCESSIVE WEIGHT, as in a heavy truck running over a line can break it. Sprinkler head are even more exposed and vulnerable to being bumped, run over, or knocked around.
So bottom- line if we want to keep leaders and ourselves functioning at peak performance levels in ministry, we as THE CHURCH need to be looking for ways to avoiding breakage and cracking. Minimizing normal wear and tear, excessive weights & pressures, and preventing punctures takes sensitivity and attention on the part of every church member. We are all part of His body and connected in function and purpose. Take it from one who has just helped repair seventeen broken pipes!! It’s much easier to prevent a leak than fix one! God Bless!
