A Garden Hose as a Metaphor for the Productive Christian Life: Problems That Limit Our Effectiveness (part 3 of 4)

Any one who’s ever used a garden hose knows it can be less than effective, even if it’s hooked up to the spigot and pointed where water is needed. It can clog with dirt, reducing and polluting the water that flows through it. Segments can out of alignment with the spigot and kink, drastically diminishing the amount of water going beyond the kink. It can be too short to reach where the water is needed. It can lack the force needed to accomplish the intended task without a nozzle. Or it can rot if water is allowed to sit in the hose, rather than pass through it.

Similar problems can beset us. Sin can clog us if we lack spiritual water pressure and let our selves get into the dirt. We develop kinks when parts of our lives are out of alignment with God. We can come up short, failing to reach the areas God wants watered, if we try to do His work on our own because we are too proud, or shy, to ask others for help. We can have only a portion of the force God intends if we lack a focused flow. Or we can simply decay by keeping the things God intends to flow through us in us, rather than allowing them to flow on to others.

Taked from Images from God