Washer Woes

My dryer gave up the ghost last week. What’s more, the washer wasn’t so much running as painfully limping along. My husband, a wonderful Mr. Fix-It who had already repaired both machines on several occasions, decided, “It’s time to get new ones.”

Now I’ve heard that there are people in this world who enjoy shopping for appliances. I’m not one of them. So when a friend reminded me that her barely-used washer and dryer were still in storage in our shed, and when she offered to let us use them, I gladly accepted. Anything to avoid a trip to Home Depot!

My husband dutifully hooked up the pair, and I gathered my laundry to try them out. There were no instruction manuals and no online information, but they seemed pretty self-explanatory. Plus I found a helpful note from my friend that said simply, “Don’t put anything on top of the machines.”

That injunction proved to be problematic. These machines were taller and bigger than the old ones, and I could no longer simply reach over them to get my laundry potions from the cupboard. Setting the bottles on top of the machines seemed the obvious solution.

Consulting Mr. Fix-It, I explained my dilemma and asked about the note. “Will something nasty happen if I set things on top of the machines?”

“No,” he said. “It’s probably just to avoid scratching the paint.”

Whereupon I came up with one of my famous “better ideas.” Carefully covering the machines with a towel, I arranged my bottles atop that. Paint protected; bottles accessible. Problem solved!

A little later, I heard a gigantic crash in the laundry room. I ran in to find the bottles of detergent on the floor, including half a bottle of bleach that had spilled all over everything. (Thankfully, I didn’t happen to have any colored clothes on the floor. So, although I had quite a mess to clean up, I didn’t ruin anything.)

When my friend heard what had happened, she politely mentioned her note. “Yeah, I saw that,” I said. “But I put a towel down so I wouldn’t scratch the paint.”

“But that’s not why you’re not supposed to put stuff on top,” she objected. “These machines are very sensitive to balance. They don’t work properly if they have stuff sitting on top. That’s why the bottles were thrown off.”

Oh.

Because I thought I knew the reason for the rule, I felt comfortable in devising a compromise. What I didn’t know was that the inconvenient rule was actually founded on physics. And neither my ignorance nor my ingenious compromise could protect me from the natural consequences of clashing with physics.

The same is true of violating moral or spiritual laws. We may think we understand the reasons for these laws. And, because we believe we have those reasons figured out, we may feel free to violate them. “They don’t apply to our culture,” we say.

We don’t realize that we’re really very much like the cat who crawls into a dryer, seeing only a quiet place to take a nap. Like that kitty, we’re too limited in our perspective to understand our danger. But all of our rationalizations will not protect us from the natural consequences of violating God’s laws, whether physical laws like challenging gravity, health laws like avoiding harmful substances, or moral laws like maintaining sexual purity.

Our ignorance doesn’t annul the laws of life anymore than it voids the laws of physics. Just as tobacco kills even its most faithful supporters, sin turns on even its most unwitting followers. But we don’t have to fall into these traps—God’s warned us of the danger in His laws. We just need to listen.

“There is a way that seems right to a man,

but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14: 12, NKJV).