Sabbath Devotional :: The Parable of the Power Wash

“Unless the Lord builds the house, they that labor build it in vain.” (Psalms 127: 1)

During the late winter of 2016-2017 lots of things were running amok. The government, yes, but also personally for our house. That season we had a series of ice dams and gigantic icicles from our deck dripping into the walls and ceiling of the family room just beneath it. Fixing this situation was an expen$ive project that took most of the Spring and Summer of 2017.

The contractors had to remove the stone surfaces on the deck, strip off the siding of the house between the main and second floors, fill every crack in the deck’s concrete and try to figure out how snow from the outside was infiltrating the interior structure of our walls and wreaking such havoc below. Finally the weak spots were located, strengthened and protected. The workers’ labors were over, and it was clean-up time.

The final touch was a specialized power wash of the deck. That noisy, thorough process aimed water thunderously back at the house in its efforts to get all unwanted dust, bugs, leaves or scraps of bark out from every conceivable cranny. Spic and span!

The next morning we awoke to fresh dripping in the family room, coming from an entirely different place in the ceiling. No ice dams this time since it was August. What was happening!? And why!?

Forensic contractors figured this out. The power wash sprayed water at the house at angles and at pressures the natural blasts of our harsh winter snows and storms never would have. Somehow in that spic-and-spanning, water blasted into micro-fissures that found their weak points and started dripping. The house was not designed to withstand that kind of hydraulic attack. No builder thought it would ever need that kind of defense.

Any parable has layers, and this one’s no exception. Consider the current executive branch to be the power wash. A powerful, unpredictable “force” was let loose in a place we had expected to be impermeable to rampaging chaos. This force blasted every seam and every joint — with illegal bans and draconian policies never before attempted or dreamed of. Soon things were leaking, gushing and trembling. Some of us worry that the whole structure is coming apart.

And we — day laborers — band together, make our phone calls, show up in person, draft letters, walk, march, educate, write op-eds, inform the “foremen” who work most closely with the structure that things are amiss. We combine our energies and continue to keep our aggressive attentions on weak spots we never previously thought to examine. We no longer take for granted the sound structure of our system. We work, engage and champion every ethical effort to keep it vital and strong. Our labors are ongoing, necessary and urgent.

Another layer of meaning applies to our inner selves as we confront weaknesses we may never have known we had. Sometimes this comes as the result of a severe challenge — an illness, a job loss, a failed relationship — and we find ourselves terrified that all our previous tactics to stay spiritually healthy are no longer working. We fear that we are being tried beyond our limits, breaking at our strongest joints, dripping with anxiety and pressure and without confidence that we can reclaim our integrity. We are beset with spiritual ice dams and ordeals more potent than any power washer’s stream.

Take heart. Help is already here. It could be that these trials have a refining power in them. Consider these scriptures:

2 Corinthians 12:9: He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me.

Could it be that Christ is the power and grace is the wash?

Philipians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

Do we have the courage to allow Christ to be our forensic contractor and show us places in our hearts, minds and lives where we need fortification?

Ether 12:27: And if [people] come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto [people] weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

Do we have the humility to become strong?

Perhaps you noticed what I did here. I made my parable of the power wash tell two very different stories. In one the current executive branch is the power wash chaotically revealing weak spots. In the other, Christ and his grace are the power wash rushing to our weak spots and, with us, making them strong. As Joseph Smith once wrote, “by proving contraries,’ truth is made manifest.”