Lessons on Life and Faith I am Learning from My Swimming Pool

My pool is probably as clear as it has ever been, and it has basically looked this way since Saturday. However, it has been consuming chlorine at an exorbitant rate making it difficult to keep it balanced and clean. You see, despite the clear appearance, apparently when the pool was closed last season there were some unseen contaminants - contaminants that looking back I had warning signs of but stubbornly chose to ignore. Despite a healthy dose of sanitizing chemicals added to the water before shutting everything down and covering it up for the winter, those unseen contaminants were able to happily munch on the sanitizer and the stabilizer leaving behind a pile-up of invisible waste products that just love to eat up the chlorine. I keep adding chlorine and it keeps disappearing. I have finally begun to get ahead and am beginning to be able to keep the chlorine level high enough to destroy the contaminants and their nasty waste. But, it has taken frequent testing and adjusting (every hour or so for 3 days) and more chlorine (in the form of bleach) then you would ever begin to imagine. And now that we are getting everything where it needs to be, all it will require is simple daily testing and incremental adjusting to keep it in the condition it needs to be in.

So, my life lesson? When my heart gets dark and dirty I may be able to keep up appearances on the outside but all the while on the inside the contamination grows and produces an unclean and out of balance life. The only remedy at that point is to soak myself with the presence of God and His grace through constant exposure to His Word, His Son, His Holy Spirit - diligently asking Him to show me the dirty, impure areas and asking Him to purify my heart and to balance my life with His grace. Then, I need to enter into His presence daily, continuing to seek His purifying grace and seeking to align my life with His plan. His grace is new every morning and is the only thing that truly satisfies.