Oh, my aching back!

I dug a ditch today and learned a lesson. I'm not as young as I used to be, but I already knew that. The sun was hot; (I knew it would be) BUT clouds came up and blocked the sun periodically and kept it cooler than it would have been. God is good, but I knew that. Back filling the hole is almost as hard as digging it, especially when you are tired, but I knew that.

The new thing I learned was the meaning of what the unjust steward said in the parable of Jesus. In the story he is about to be found out in an audit and knows he will be dismissed. Among other things, he says, "I can't dig!" As a Marine, I was taught the "can do" attitude. Of course I can dig, I just put in a day doing it. Bur if I accomplished as pitifully little for an employer, I would soon be fired. I am now fully acquainted with that feeling, "I can't dig," meaning on a regular basis for pay.

The sedentary lifestyle takes it's toll. Evidently that is all the steward had done. I now know how he would have felt. I sat behind the wheel of a truck for 3 years, at a desk for pay for 4½ years, and now at my own desk for 3 years in retirement. Perhaps I would not announce it from a street corner or write it on a cardboard sign, but I do have to admit it here. I can't dig.

Tomorrow I will lay the rest of the pipe, make the hookup, and fill in the rest of the ditch if it doesn't rain. Somehow that seems like a lot of work. Maybe it will take two days, I don't know. I can't dig.