Life is Like a Steam Iron

There are illustrations all over the place that we can apply to life and learn something about life from. Last week it just so happened to be pancakes this time it is ironing. The other day I was ironing my clothes for church. I know, some of you are thinking, “Geesh, this guy is a big girl! Last week he was cooking, this week he is ironing clothes!” First of all, do not be so barbaric, there is nothing wrong with a man ironing and cooking in the 21st Century. Second of all these are all traits I learned in the Marine Corps, where by the way I even learned how to sew on buttons. So for anyone who thinks that the Marines only produce killers, you are wrong. We had to learn other life skills as well. So if you make me mad I will kill you then replace missing buttons as well as iron the suit we bury you in. Obviously I am totally kidding about that. I would not kill anyone with a wrinkled suit that is missing buttons; that would just be rude. Unless of course I had fixed them pancakes for breakfast then it would perfectly polite.
Seriously though, I used to iron clothes like the stereotypical American until I had an ironing life changing experience. What do I mean by stereotypical American? Well, let us just say that moderation is not an American strong suit. If one teaspoon works, then two must work better. Americans are known for overkill and rightly so. So, I used to iron everything with the heat and steam on them turned all the way up because I thought that the hotter and steamier the better it must iron clothes. Then one day I decided to actually read the chart on the iron. I noticed that there were different settings on the iron for different types of fabric. Just for giggles I actually set the iron to setting that matched the tag in the shirt. I was amazed at how much better the iron worked! Since I have started matching the setting to the fabric it takes a lot less time to iron my clothes and they come out looking better.
Have you ever wondered why life does not always work-out like you want it to? Maybe it is because you aren’t living it like you are supposed to. Maybe it is because you aren’t living life at its proper setting. Maybe you have more things going on in your life than you can handle and life is getting too hot. Maybe you are not doing what you can and life is too cold and boring. Maybe you are trying to do things that you aren’t programmed to do at that setting. Either way, your life is not going to be as effective as it could be. Life works much better when it is being handled properly, at the right settings. When used the way it was intended it will yield much better results.
God put us on Earth with a right way to live. Along with this right way, he also gave us freewill. He actually lets us decide if we will live right or not. He does not make us do it right nor does He force us to read the directions. He leaves all that up to us. If we want to just skate through life settling for less than the best by ignoring the directions and doing things our own way, then He will let us. If we do decide to read the directions then He will allow us to understand what it is saying. But when we decide to take those directions and our new understanding of them and actually apply them to our lives then our lives will click like never before. We will still encounter wrinkles in our lives, but we will be prepared to overcome them and even change them. We will be able to flatten the hills and fill-in the valleys of our souls. We can also decide to approach situations in life at the wrong settings, but if we expect to churn out the desired result in doing that then we are fooling ourselves to believe we can do it our own way.
May you learn to live your life at the setting which God designed for every situation you find yourself operating in. May you actually apply what you have learned of the proper settings to the situations which call for those settings. May you learn that when you live the way God intends you to live that He will do infinitely more for and through you than you could ever hope for or imagine.