One morning in early spring, we woke up to our water barely trickling out of the faucet whenever we turned it on. At first, we wondered if maybe our pipes had frozen over night but the more we assessed the situation, we realized that they actually didn’t freeze but that there was something wrong with the pipes themselves. Maybe there was a crack somewhere and now the water was leaking out of the crack. Maybe there was something caught in the pipes and the water was being stopped from being able to flow through. Maybe there was something more than either of those two things happening but one thing was for sure, something was causing us to not have water. When you don’t have water, life becomes disrupted. It’s almost like you don’t know what do to and life just stops at home until they are fixed. We depend on water to get us through the day.

So what happens when the sludge of life clogs your pipes? When you no longer function the way The Lord intended? When things keep pilling up in your pipes and there is no longer any water running out of them?

If I was to ask you “What is your purpose in life” what would your response be? To be a husband or a wife? To become a parent? To work at your dream job? To go on dream vacations? To live in a big house and drive the car you have always wanted? To do all of this stuff? But what happens when you do those things? What happens when you become a husband or wife? Or you have children? Or you get the job you went to school all of those years for? Did you complete your purpose in life and that’s it? Your life no longer has any purpose? We are all constantly striving for something. Something to fill this longing void in us. It’s deeply rooted in all of our hearts. This feeling of doing more. Being more. We can’t shake it. We can’t run from it. It’s why we are never satisfied with who we are or with what we are doing. We keep searching for the next thing that will cause us to feel like we are completing our purpose in life. But we will never find it because we are searching for it in all the wrong places.

Picture your life like pipes. Before pipes are even placed into the ground, they are clean and have no debris in them. Anything you pour into them will freely run through and come out clean. Then you put them into the ground. When water starts running through them, extra stuff may also come with the water. Mud. Sticks. Leaves. Small pebbles. Frogs. Things that aren’t supposed to be there, all of a sudden are. The intended purpose of the pipes is for them to move water from one place to another, not to move all this extra stuff, but it happens. Over time the extra stuff will start to build up inside the pipes. Now the clean pipes you put into the ground are filled with gunk. The water that flows in on one side is hardly flowing out on the other. It’s causing the intended purpose of the pipes to be something other than what they were designed to be. No longer are they doing what you wanted them to do because they are now being clogged by junk. The clean water that entered the pipes is either coming out all muddy and filled with pieces of leaves or it’s not even coming out at all. Its purpose in life is not being fulfilled.

We are the pipes. We are vessels The Lord uses. He created us and designed us to be used by Him. It’s like He pours water into our pipes but when that water flows out of us, it is not the same water. It’s been muddied by things that are clogging our pipes. The things of this world that aren’t supposed to be there. Instead of being who we were designed and created to be, we are filling our pipes with sludge. Our marriage is not our purpose in life. Our children are not our purpose in life. Our job is not our purpose in life. That dream job, car or vacation is not our purpose in life. Our purpose in life is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. That’s it. We have overcomplicated everything. We have allowed the waters to become muddy and eventually our pipes to become clogged. It’s so easy to get caught up in the creation of the world instead of praising The Creator of it. The world wants us to be distracted by it and doesn’t want water to flow out. Oh how easy it is for me to allow the sludge of life to block my pipes.

As I write this, there is so much that I have allowed to clog my pipes and muddy the waters. I have allowed things, people, outside junk to be what I find purpose in. Searching for contentment that can only be found in The Lord. Things that I think will bring me happiness and contentment won’t fill the longing void that He has placed inside of me. The void is what we all search to fill in our ever longing hearts but the void won’t be filled by things of this earth. Things of this world will cause us to live in fear. Cause us to be distracted and harden our hearts. We see anger, hurt, sadness, hopelessness, uncertainty, and so much more when we look at the state of the world because we are not living our intended purpose. When we base our purpose in life on this world, life doesn’t function the way The Lord designed it. Too much sludge in your pipes doesn’t allow you to be who He created you to be. You can’t fulfill your purpose in life.