MIXING CEMENT IS AS EASY AS 1, 2, 3
As I was plotting around my slightly neglected garden yesterday, I couldn't help but notice cracks starting to appear in some of the cement work around our garden edges done by our landlord many many moons ago. So like all good gardeners, I took a mental note of where I needed to focus my next burst of gardening energy on and then quickly moved on to hedging and moving rocks from point A to point B.
Without me realising it at the time, the cracks I saw on our cement yesterday has inspired my blog for today.
First and foremost I must indemnify myself before I go any further with my little blog for the day. I am not a professional 'Bob' or 'Betty' the builder. I am just a keen gardener and 'fixer upper' Wife & Mum, who is willing to learn how to do things when it comes to the basics of repair and maintenance around our little house on the prairie. So if you decide to use some of my steps in your next 'mixing the cement' when building or repairing your abode, please do not blame me if you did not get your cement mix right and your walls come tumbling down.
When growing up in Cairns during the 70's and early 80's, if we wanted to know how to make or repair something around our home, we couldn't click on a laptop and do a quick Google search. Instead we would ride down to the local hardware store and ask a shop attendant for some tips on how to do this that and the other.
Yes thank you Google we now have solutions at our fingertips. Here it comes: mixing cement is as easy as steps 1, 2, 3.
Once you have all the necessary ingredients of cement, sand and gravel it is just a matter of making sure you mix the right number of parts together.
Experts via Google suggest using a spade or shovel to mix your ingredients together - no brainer there. Shovel a ratio of 1 part cement, 2 parts sand and 3 parts gravel into a sturdy wheelbarrow and mix dry ingredients together.
Interesting thing I discovered when searching various sites on the Internet on how to mix cement is that various suppliers will tell you their cement mix is the best quality on the market but nobody mentions the 'water'. The quality of dry mix could vary but without the most important ingredient of 'H2O', 'agua', 'aqua', 'tubing', 'mizu' - yes water, our cement mix is just a wheelbarrow of dry ingredients with no purpose.
You probably wondering what is the correlation between mixing cement and the cross. Here it is - as mere mortals, sometimes we complicate the message of the cross, when in reality it is not complicated at all.
Like mixing cement, we can get too complicated in technique. We loose our minds trying to figure out what is the correct portion of dry mix in order to get the perfect mortar. But in reality if we failed to add water in our dry mix we have nothing.
The message of the cross was and is so simple yet we complicate it at times. During Paul's ministry, some people were saying that everyone needed to keep the laws of Moses. It seems the Galatian Christians were being taught by false teachers that they needed to progress further in the faith by observing the Book of Law (aka the Torah). I have know doubt Galatian Christians were becoming confused by the minute.
Paul was not backward in coming forward and his response to this was very clear. "Mark my words! I, Paul tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. (Galatians 5:2-3)
What was the missing water ingredient in the lives of the false teachers? The missing 'ingredient' was simply that Jesus Christ had been crucified on a cross and His death had a purpose - to save us from sin. There is nothing we can add too or take away from the message of the cross.
Next time you decide to slap yourself silly or beat yourself up because you may not be fulfilling the many does and don't's of the old testament, which I might add according to Rabbi Simlai, the Torah contains 613 mitzvoth's - stop, take a deep breath, make yourself a lovely cup of your favourite hot beverage, kick back in your favourite chair and spend some time getting to know the message of the cross that the Apostle Paul wrote about in the book of Galatians.
When we understand God's grace through the cross, we will get to see God's unmerited favour.
Yes mixing cement is as easy as 1, 2, 3......
