plumbing

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You’ve Got To Know The Right Guy

Knowing the right guy is so important. When you need advice or expertise, being able to connect with the right person is invaluable.

When it comes to making or fixing things around the house, I’m pretty limited.

I can do a few things as long as they don’t involved sharp objects. I’ve just had way too many cuts on my hands to be comfortable with saws and knives. … Hey, I’ve even done some damage in the past with a screwdriver and I wouldn’t consider it a sharp object.

In the past week or so I needed some advice on the kitchen upgrade we are doing at home.

Let me say upfront, I’m not doing much on this one; Lily is doing most of the work, which involves a lot of painting.

But we were also getting a new kitchen counter and that meant we would have to disconnect the water to the kitchen sink for about a day.

There were no shut-off valves under the sink so I needed another solution … unless we wanted to shut off the water supply to the entire house for over a day … No!

The guy at the hardware store said I needed a converter piece to connect our old style pipes to the new kind of pipe and then add a shut-off valve to that.

Well, I bought all the parts and it came to about $52. I thought that seemed like an awful lot of money for 24 hours of water!

I mean, for that money, there was no ride I got to go on, or show I got to see, or course I got to play. It was just plumbing parts … pretty uninspiring.

After I bought the parts I had a few days before I had to shut the water off, so I just kept them all in the bag.

The day before I needed to shut the water off I decided to go to another hardware store to see if there was a simpler solution.

I showed the guy at the store a picture of my present hook up and he suggested a threaded cap.

It was basically a plug that screwed into the end of the pipe. It only cost me about $11 and about 10 minutes to complete the whole task.

He was the right guy to ask.

After the new counter was installed, we needed a piece of wood to span the length of the opening under the sink. It needed to be 1 1/8″ thick, and if you know anything about wood, that’s not a common thickness.

I went back to the hardware store and the wood guy was totally unable to help me; he had no solution for me.

However, the next day I was talking to a friend who works in construction and told him what I needed.

Without hesitation he said, “You need 5/4 piece of wood. You have to get that at…”  and named the supply house.

Again, knowing the right guy made all the difference in the world.

Here’s the thing: We experience a lot in life that we don’t have answers for. We come up against things that we are totally unprepared for. But no matter what it is, Christ is that guy who can help us in our need. So often we don’t go to Him first. Christ is the authority and expert; He is able. Go to Him before you look elsewhere for help.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need advice and help with right now? Leave your comments below.

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How To Fix Things The Hard Way

I needed to be born wealthy. It’s not because I have expensive tastes; it’s because I lack the skills to fix things.

maxresdefaultI’m not great at working with my hands; it doesn’t come that easily to me.

If I was wealthy I wouldn’t have to fix things, or make things, or put things together. I could hire someone to do all that!

I’m not saying that wealthy people never fix things themselves. Some are handy, so they use their money in other ways. I would use money to hire out jobs around the house.

Reality for me, however, is I have had to learn to do things that I’m not particularly adept at.

Like this week when we had three taps that all leaked. There were two in the laundry room and one up in the ceiling of our family room that led to an outside faucet.

I sized up the work involved, took pictures and set off for the hardware store. The guy at the store looked at my pictures, listened to my explanation and then handed me a small package of washers.

He said there was a small washer at the end of these taps, and all I had to do was just remove the tap, use a screwdriver to remove the washer, replace it and put it back together.

I was encouraged. It sounded like a 15 minute job – half hour at best. Easy.

Well, it would have been easy for a handy guy … not so easy for me.

I won’t go into all the details but I had a lot of trouble loosening the screws. They were like frozen on. I guess over the years, having had water on it every day, it got stuck in place.

Well, let’s just say 5 jabs to my finger later – 3 with a screwdriver and 2 with an utility knife – I was no closer to fixing those taps.

I went to the same hardware store twice, and then didn’t think I could show my face there again.  I ended up going to two more hardware stores … not all in one trip. There were four separate trips to hardware stores!

At one point, I just sat down in the family room and watched TV. There wasn’t anything on. It was the middle of the afternoon but I needed something to take my mind off the fifteen minute job I couldn’t complete.

As I sat on the couch, I thought, “If I was wealthy, I’d have a guy in here right now. I’d be able to chat with him while he completed the task.” … But that’s not my lot in life.

I didn’t change the washers out on all the taps and they still leaked a bit. That’s when I looked at my bank account and decided I was richer than I thought.

So I purchased three new taps (they come with washers already in place) for 300% of the cost of the washers. It took me about 20 minutes to get them installed and the leaks were gone.

Why didn’t I just do that in the first place?!

Here’s the thing: Not being handy is a lot like us having to deal with temptation. We are not that good at it. It’s difficult work and we don’t do well much of the time. We get hurt or hurt others in the process. As difficult as it is to keep from sinning, there is coming a day when the riches of heaven will make temptation a thing of the past. Keep doing the hard work in the mean time.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What makes temptation hard work for you? Leave your comment below.