Compromising by disobedience causes major plumbing issues

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By Pegi Bricker

My momma said to me once when I had given up, “God will supply the milk, but you have to supply the bucket.”

Years ago, I misstepped a step, which caused a 911 with a shattered right leg. I remember looking at my foot and thinking, ‘Why is it over there, and I am here?’

I finished a week at Union Hospital in Terre Haute with many hours spent in the Larry Bird Rehab Center learning to use crutches on stairs, how to drive in the middle of the front seat of my Charger, how to push grocery carts while shopping and how to cook and get the food to the table all while on one foot.

I had no insurance. I had to quit my job as a nurses’ aide. I had to move from an upstairs apartment to ground-level efficiency. I had to move back to Greencastle to live with my parents after years of independence. My 5-year-old niece, Shauna, helped me while I was home alone during the day. The clinical finals in my nursing education had to be put on hold as did my scholarships and grants for said education.

Worst than all … I was backslidden. Completely, totally, 100% fallen to hell backslidden.

Why do I always have to be in a huge mess before I see that I am in a mess? Not only was my bucket leaking, it was bone dry.

Disclaimers:

1. When I quote my Bible, it is not an exact quotation but what is revealed to me when I read the God’s living word. I call them “Pegi-isms.”

2. We all leak.

Humanity leaks. I leak. I am not talking old lady, multiple pregnancies and/or middle of a hearty laugh leaking. I am talking about cracked pot, seeping cistern, perforated planning, fissure in fact checking, hole in the head, chinked chains of thought all oozing life from a body broken from sin, diseases, injuries, listening to bad reports and life in general.

Basically and simply put, not guarding my heart. So I drip, dribble (nod to Larry Bird) and discharge all of the time all over the place until the trickles of my life turn to tides and before my wakeup call from the Lord is considered. Just like the children of Israel, Pegi Pooh Bricker “yet again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” by not loving the Lord with all my heart, soul and strength.

Putting my thesaurus aside now and taking out my Bible, here I am. I have all of this milk, which is my God-given potential. I have his sharp, living, cleansing Word for an instruction manual. I have over the past 38-plus years of salvation finally learned not to go to the YouTube, Facebook or other written experts on plumbing.

I go to the expert, the one who created my plumbing and wrote the book on how to keep the drains clean, fresh water flowing and that altogether bothersome toilet from running over stinking up the entire house.

Romans 12 tells me to present my body as a living sacrifice, which is my reasonable service of worship. As I present my bucket, I think clearly of the Keith Green song, “Make my life a prayer to you. I want to do what You want me to, no empty words and no white lies, no token prayers, no compromise.” Compromising by disobedience causes major plumbing issues for me. How about you?

I often pray, Abba Father, whatever it takes for your will to be accomplished in my life, papa let it be done. I have also learned after praying this type of prayer to make certain I have my big-girl Depends securely fastened because a whole lot of shaking and leaking is about to go on.

Isaiah tells me to take up every stumbling block. It also repeatedly tells me to be humble and contrite. My largest stumbling block is wrong thinking. I find that when I do not “think on whatever is true, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous and praise worthy,” I am bossy, angry, resentful, depressed, ungrateful and totally awful to be around.

In other words, I am the complete opposite of humble and contrite. I lose my peace. My relationship with Jesus is not tended with fire and passion, so I leak every time and all over the place, especially at home. So he prunes me, and once again, our relationship is restored and I am content with my milk, whether it is skim or whole.

I am tired of being a fat little baby crying for my milk. I am ready for the meat of his law, his love, his life. Isaiah 59 speaks about thoughts of iniquity, pointing fingers, shedding innocent blood, there is no peace. Isaiah 59 also says God hears me, cares about me and is completely able to save me.

So when I allow the enemy to come in like a flood, the holy spirit will raise up a standard. But I don’t always look at the standard raiser. I look at the flood. This is simply put in the sweet old Christian chorus led by Hywel Thomas at Cornerstone years ago — itty bitty devil, great big God.

The very end of Jonah tells me that my God is concerned about me who most times “doesn’t know my right hand from my left hand.” Look, it really does say that.

Psalm 80 shows asking three times for rescue again, so I will be restored, shined on and delivered. I am thinking my plumbing problem is also the universal joint dysfunction of humanity.

Thank you, father God, for your amazing grace which I often test moment by moment. Thank you, father, for MS, OPLL and for all of the messes, primarily caused by my own mouth, because you shine so brightly in the darkest of nights.

We spent a day recently at the Ark Encounter in Kentucky, where an actual ark was built to the specifications given to Noah by the Lord God in Genesis. Noah was the only one not leaking compromise in the days of Noah. What if Noah had compromised and did his own thing while building the ark?

Let’s talk about a real flood in the flood. What if Noah hadn’t brought his wife? What if Noah played favorites and left Shem at home? What if he forgot the giraffes? What if he failed to obey the instructions on how to get fresh water to the animals and how to get the byproducts of thousands of living, drinking and eating animals off of the ark? Now that could have been a real plumbing problem.

Psalm 84 tells me God’s dwelling place is lovely. Like the psalmist Asaph, my soul longs, yes even faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my broken body cries for the living God. I come so often to the very place of desperation, the place of pruning to produce more fruit, the place of discipline so often I confuse with punishment. It is so easy to look at all of the pain and uncertainty of MS by focusing on whether I will be able to walk tomorrow.

Will I ever be able to drive again? Will my beloved husband yet again lovingly excuse my outrages and outbursts uncontrollable and uncontrolled? Can I get up by myself the next time I fall? Is the report of looming quadriplegia true? Did I charge my wheelchair last night? What do you find easy to look toward?

It is not comfortable to gaze into the eyes of Jesus, the author and finisher of my faith, the bright morning star, the truth, the life and the way because He sees me completely naked before him. But God, he is able to save me from myself. Only he knows why he even wants to be with me, but he calls me friend.

I’ve gone on long enough. My friend is calling, and my heart is hungry for him.

Pegi Bricker is a Seymour resident who has lived with multiple sclerosis for the past 18 years. Send comments to [email protected].

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