The word “maintenance” has a tag-along emotion for me . . . it’s called frustration.

I get frustrated with maintenance because I want to enjoy the thing that needs to be maintained; I don’t want to work on it.

Bike Maintenance

I want to use something and not have to care for it or fix it. In the 80’s I didn’t want a PC because you needed to know DOS and a series of commands and what pressing the “Ctrl+Alt+Del” keys did. I just wanted to use a computer, not figure out how it worked.

I like to ride my bike; I don’t like cleaning it. I want to just pull the cord on my lawnmower and start cutting the grass. I don’t like having to scrape the grass off the undercarriage or keep it tuned.

The problem is, in the last week, my avoidance with maintenance has accentuated my frustration. I broke the chain on my bike, probably because I didn’t clean the gritty oil off it.

My lawnmower is having a hard time starting these days and it’s not cutting evenly because it needs a tune up and a wheel adjustment.

And my computer needs some file maintenance soon or I will run out of space on my hard drive.

This was all fresh in my mind when I watched a little 3 minute video on how to clean your bike after a ride so it’s ready for your next ride. The guy on the video said you could do it in five minutes, but somehow (through the magic of video, I guess) he showed us in three.

I’m almost convinced that I need a new attitude toward maintenance, but for that to happen I really need a new emotion to go with the word. I’ve been thinking of some emotions that I could associate with maintenance – emotions like affection, confidence and satisfaction … but I can’t seem to trick myself and instead I feel annoyance, contempt and suffering.

Some people love maintenance, maybe even more that using the item. But not me. I know my things would last longer if I had a warm, fuzzy attachment to the word but it’s just not that easy. I can’t turn a switch on and like it.

I thought of a couple of solutions. I could give away my stuff when it needs some maintenance, and just bless people with things that sort of work. But that would require me needing a lot of money to replace my items.

Also, I could farm the maintenance out to people who like doing it. But that too would be costly and I would be without my beloved whatever, while it was being serviced.

There doesn’t seem to be an easy solution for me that works. I might have to do maintenance even though I don’t like it, even though it frustrates me. I might have to just discipline myself in spite of the piggy-backed emotion that comes with the word.

Here’s the thing: Relationships, like with things we own, require maintenance. We might like the idea of just enjoying our relationship with God but to maintain that relationship, we need to connect with Him, grow in Him and serve Him. That kind of maintenance might seem like work that we might not want to put our energy into, but maintaining our relationship with God will require us to discipline ourselves in order to connect, grow and serve.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How disciplined are you at maintaining your relationship with God?  Leave your comment below.