A little sin...

Job 37:10

"By the breath of God ice is given, and the broad waters are frozen fast."

About four days ago, as I was sitting in my kitchen, quietly reading my Bible, before the whole house was awake, I noticed that my refrigerator was making a strange, tinny sounding noise. "Strange noise," I thought. Then I ignored it. This went on for about 3 days.

Then Friday, I took what should have been a frozen waffle out of the freezer. Problem was, the waffle was not frozen. It was kind of soft. "Hmm, maybe this is related to that strange noise I have been hearing." I decided to call in an appliance repairman immediately. He showed up at about 4:15 p.m. This is on Friday, remember.

He walked straight into my kitchen, pulled my fridge away from the wall, tinkered around for a pair of minutes (as Beth Moore would say), and pronounced that my compressor was broken and my refrigerator and freezer were worthless, and in fact had not been working properly since the first time I heard that strange noise. This was not a good moment for me.

There was, however, some good news. My fridge was still under warranty (being only 3 years old). The parts and labor would be completely covered under the standard warranty. Bad news? Oh yes. The broken part would need to be ordered, and would take 3-4 days to arrive, and they couldn't order it until Monday. It took me a while to realize what that would mean.

"Oh, that means I have no refrigerator or freezer all weekend? And probably until Thursday of next week? Umm, what am I supposed to do?"

This was apparently not the problem of the appliance guy. He was ready to go and enjoy the weekend.

At first, I thought things would be relatively fine. We have a mini-fridge in our wet bar. I emptied all of the bottles (I'll let you guess what those contained!) out of the mini-fridge and managed to salvage the milk, eggs, butter, lunch meat, cheese, juice, mayo, and cream (gotta have that for coffee). That was all that would fit. My husband brought home some bags of ice, and we stuffed them in the fridge and freezer and hoped that would keep things cool enough. I did do one smart thing, and took all of my chicken and put it in my deep freezer outside.


This morning I realized that the ice-stuffing had been pointless. There was a puddle of water in front of the fridge and condensation all over all of the things left in the fridge. So, facing reality, I got out the garbage bags, and to make a story that is already too long just a little bit shorter, I cleaned that baby out. Four trash bags worth.

Then, I took a good look at what the inside of my refrigerator and freezer looked like when emptied. It was horrible. I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say that I spent a majority of what was a beautiful day, up to my elbows in a sink full of bleach. I never realized how many parts could be taken out of a fridge to be cleaned. All of you women who do this on a regular basis, well, good for you. I don't.

As I was scrubbing mystery goo off the bottom of the freezer, I started thinking that I was going to find a way to turn this into a good spiritual illustration. I may have to stretch to make it work, but I was going to turn this into a good blog post. So, here is my best attempt....

Galatians 5:9

"A little leaven leavens the whole lump."

You know, if I had paid attention to that first tinny sound the fridge was making, I could have spared myself a whole heap of trouble. Chances are, the part would have arrived on Friday, and I would now be enjoying properly cooled food items. Sin is like that, too. We always get a warning sign when there is a problem. Even if it is just a little prick of the conscience. Sometimes it is much more than a little prick, it is more like alarm bells and red flags competing for attention.

At the point of first being aware of the sin, the smart thing to do is take care of the problem immediately. Before it "leavens the lump" and starts causing all kinds of scary things. Just take your pick of sins: romantic thoughts about that guy you dated before you got married, hateful feelings towards that neighbor who lets her dog bark at all hours, gossiping about that woman in church whose children are always out of control, not paying for your Bible Study book because it's done on an honor system, I could go on, but I hope you get the idea. They all start small, but left unchecked and unresolved, could lead you straight into disaster. And you should have at least a prick of conscience if you are doing any them.

But, say you see the problem and choose to ignore it. This is a bad idea. That strange noise my fridge was making should have been enough to make me call the appliance guy. But I chose to ignore it. Really, I did. It was a conscious choice. And by choosing to look the other way and let the noise go on, I ended up with stinky shrimp and slimy goo. The same thing can happen to our hearts and minds. Even our actions. And instead of handling a relatively small sin, with few, if any, consequences, we could be left having to break out the bleach bucket and do some serious work. I would rather deal with small problems, wouldn't you?

1 John 1:9

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Acts 3:19-20

"Repent, therefore, and turn again,that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,"


(Now, go back and read the verse at the top of this post. And smile with me!)

One of my friends who read this post told me that she was a little unclear as to why I had to bleach my entire refrigerator. So, in case any of the rest of you have the same question, I thought I would elaborate. There are two reasons I had to bleach everything. First, my refrigerator had not been cooling, AT ALL, for the entire three days that it was making the noise. I guess there was enough cool air, and ambient chill to keep things from being obviously not refrigerated, but by the time I noticed the problem, defrosting, dripping and oozing had already been happening. Second, and probably more importantly, I had not given my fridge a thorough scrubbing in the entire three years I owned it. Now, you know all my dirty little secrets. I don't clean my fridge on a regular basis!