I have mentioned, I believe, in previous blogs about the state of my water supply here in Chennai India, but for the purposes of this blog I will review the setup quickly in case any have forgotten or never heard. On top of my apartment building there is a big black plastic container. It is basically my own personal water tower. The water sits up there and then slides down the multiple tubes until it spills out into my kitchen sink or all over my bathroom floor, sometimes of course it continues its journey carrying unwanted debris through the drain and out into the vast Pacific Ocean. The only problem with this setup is how the water gets up into the big black bottle.
Don’t worry there is a pump I don’t have to carry it up myself, however the pump must be switched on when the water is low and off again when the bbb (big black bottle) is filled. There is no automatic shut off and if the bbb fills up and the pump is left on the water spills out across the wall hitting my neighbors house and splashing down over his windows and into his yard. Usually, if the tank is empty when I begin filling it, it will take about 30 or 40 minutes to fill up. Anyone who knows me, knows the chances of me remembering thirty minutes after I turned it on to turn it off again are pretty much equal to men building a colony on Mars. It just isn’t going to happen. Again, usually this isn’t a problem as I will suddenly hear the sound of rain and wonder why it is raining on only one side of the building. Somewhere between the thoughts “I hear rain” and “it sure looks sunny out this window” the truth breaks through and my torso is diving for the switch while my legs try to catch up.
This morning however is a good example of what happens when the bbb, my goldfish memory, and duty join forces to create havoc in my immediate neighborhood. This morning Dave and I were heading out to one of the churches to preach and share fellowship with our brethren here in India. Dave was going to pick me up at 9:00am. True to form I was up into the early hours of morning working on my sermon among other things. Thus I pushed back the ummm delights of arising as far as possible. About 8:15am I found myself starring at a multi-holed stainless steel nozzle. I had barely turned the knobs below when the steady stream of cleansing fluid began to decrease in force and massm, which is my usual cue that it was time to turn on the pump. Now I was left with two choices. 1. Forget the shower and go to church radiating the fresh aroma of 8 hour sweat, 2. Turn on the pump and come back from church to find a large lake sitting next to my house. Option one wasn’t really much of an option and I was determined to avoid option two, so after flipping on the pump I kept repeating “gotta turn off the pump” over and over in my head until I was done with my shower.
After church Dave and I stopped at a local Sunday brunch buffet and made sure we ate our money’s worth. When I got back to my apartment full of food on a Sunday afternoon, I sat down on my couch with David Baldacci’s newest Camel Club novel, which quickly turned into me lying down with David Baldacci’s newest Camel Club novel, which silent slipped into a state of unconscious relaxation without David Baldacci’s newest Camel Club novel, which had slipped to the floor. Before my eyes closed shop however I did notice that the power was off in my apartment for the moment. The fact that the florescent light above my head was beginning to flicker made just enough of an impression upon my incoherent senses to register as a thought. The fact that I heard rain outside my window was not considered significant until crossing over the bridge between the thought factory and storage shed it ran into mister “you turned on the pump this morning.” The combined effort of the two was a far greater stimulant than the rich black coffee that was at the moment residing within my veins.
Apparently, about an hour after I had left with the pump still running, my neighbor called the man who lives directly below me who in turn called his brother the landlord. Unable to shut off the pump itself because the switch was inside my apartment, they had shut off the power for that whole half of the building and later had turned it on again when they thought I was home and had hopefully had switched the pump off. As it turned out they were half right.
Despite proving that I was born a blond, the story reminded me very much of our life as Christ’s witnesses. Peter knew that he was overflowing, overflowing to the point that he was spilling all over his neighbors, which often greatly annoyed those near to him. “For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” Acts 4:20. Peter’s fountain was flowing and he would not indeed could not shut off that pump. Yes it annoyed his neighbors to be splashed with that living water, but Peter didn’t care. He knew they needed that water. The reason that we so seldom overflow in every area of our life witnessing to Christ, is simply because we so often shut off that pump. If we aren’t full ourselves we aren’t going to overflow, and five minutes of bible reading and prayer a day isn’t even going to come close to filling us much less splashing over. Keep the pump on, keep the tank full. Meanwhile I will try and remember to shut off mine, especially when I leave this Wednesday for Africa.
Love and Grace from our Lord Jesus Christ, and greetings from your brethren in India,
Matthew Ude