rel

Much of this past week has been spent preparing and opening our swimming pool. Getting the cover off, topping off the water, preparing the filter, pouring in bags and bottles of assorted chemicals–all in an effort to have sparkling clear water.  Yeah, the water temperature is still cold, but with the heat index hovering around 100° here, that’s ok.

Today I got out the handrails and ladder and started to install them. They fit into little holes in the concrete sidewalk around the pool.  In each hole is a metal socket, and in the socket you put these little gizmos that you tighten with a wrench to secure the rails so you won’t pull one out while trying to hoist yourself out of the pool.

I think Rube Goldberg must have invented these little gizmos. You unscrew a bolt, then ease the larger part (which is threaded but also oddly shaped {not a triangle, not a cube, not a cylinder–maybe a tricubinder?} so it must go in just right) into the hole in the socket. Then, holding it by one finger, you thread the bolt back into the bottom part of it, but it can’t be too tight or too loose. Once that feat is done, you then can slide the handrail into the openings and tighten the bolts, and voila! the handrail is tight.

Only thing is that I didn’t get one of them lined up just right. One end went into the socket just fine, but the other wouldn’t line up. The problem was it went in crooked, and it got stuck, and it was the dickens to get back out. After tugging and straining at it, I was able to free the handrail, and tried again. Same thing. The other gizmo was out of alignment.  I repeated this process three or four times before I got the gizmos all lined up and the handrail slid into the socket like it was supposed to.

Much later in the day I got to thinking about how important alignment is. It matters that the gizmos are aligned when you put the handrails into the sockets.  It matters that our lives are in alignment with God’s Word.  And it matters that leaders are in alignment with a ministry’s vision, values & mission.

Cause when your gizmos don’t line up, you exert a lot of energy trying to correct the problem that you could exert somewhere else.

Think about it.