If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It
- May 19, 2015
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- Wendel Elliott
Posted in: Featured, Ranch Life
I pulled up to the gate at the lower place and being without my trusty gate opener I was going to have to get it myself. I reached down to grab the door handle of the 1997 Ford F250…stop me if you’ve heard this one or have experienced it yourself. You guessed it I was sitting in the pickup looking at the door handle that had broken off in my hand. Well, that’s been a better part of a year, because after that day I have to roll down the window in order to get out of the pickup.
If you have that generation of Ford then you probably have faced the same thing at one time or another. However, for you it could be the gate that is hanging on one hinge and you have to carry it around in order to get it opened or closed. It might be that one pipeline that has a crack and leaks but the trough still gets enough water to keep it full. You can probably look around the house and find things that are in much the same shape.
They’re broke but functional.
We have some of the same things in our lives that maybe broke but they’re functional. It could be this body that gets a year older and has more creaks as time goes by. It could be the finances that are broke but we get by month to month. It could be a marriage that is broke but we have good practice by making it look like it’s working.
There was a feller that Jesus met that was broken in his body, in his health, because he was blind. His story can be found in the book of John, chapter 9.
“As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me…” (John 9:1-4 NIV)
Here he was, a man blind from birth. He was broken in his body but somehow managed to beg and live and get by. He was broken but it worked for him, sitting in the street day after day making do on whatever came his way. However, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
There are some things that I may have mentioned before that might be broken in your life. We like to use that saying and we throw it around a whole bunch: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” The truth is, if you and I will acknowledge that brokeness and allow God’s work to be displayed in us we can be fixed. What could be different in your life if you allowed God to fix what you think isn’t broke? That very thing that’s broken but it works. You get by from day to day, much like that blind man. Just think about what could be different in all of our lives if we allowed the work of God to be displayed in those areas.
Well, it’s about time I replace that door handle!
I’ll see ya’ll out in the pasture!
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Posted in: Featured, Ranch Life
About Wendel Elliott
Wendel Elliott is a cowboy preacher, serving right at six years as pastor of Big Bend Cowboy Church in Alpine, TX. He also manages a cow/calf operation in the area. Wendel's writing and messages come straight from ranching experiences and the Western way of life....