Respect the Blessing
One of the perks of writing a daily blog is the fact I get to use my dumb mistakes to positively impact others. Today's edition of Travis-is-dumb is brought to you by the letter "B".......as in boots. On Black Friday, I finally purchased the pair of Helm boots I had been eyeing for years. I even wrote a blog post about them last September. The boots are amazing! They were everything I bargained for, and I'm excited to enjoy them for the next 5-10 years.
Well, until yesterday. For the last several weeks, I've been telling myself I need to clean and polish them. Partly so they look nicer, but primarily because I need to protect them from the elements. Even a few days ago, I thought to myself, "I really need to work on them tonight because of all the snow we're getting." Can you tell where this is going?
Last night, as I began putting on my beautiful boots, I noticed a massive water stain on the leather. One side was essentially ruined. My lack of care resulted in the leather being exposed to the elements, eventually paying the ultimate price. These boots were going to last me for the better part of a decade.....but lived for less than three months. If I want to replace them, which I do, it will cost me $300.
I regularly beat the drum on the importance of not idolizing our possessions. We shouldn't worship things, and stuff shouldn't dictate our decisions. It's far too common for people to love things and use people, when we should be loving people and using things. All of our stuff will soon be in a landfill, after all.
However, while we shouldn't obsess over our material possessions, we are called to be good stewards. We have a responsibility to respect what we've been blessed with. If we spend our resources on a possession that we will disrespect and demean, that's wasteful and irresponsible. In the case of my boots, I was wasteful and irresponsible.
I'll survive and will eventually laugh at this situation, but it's a humbling reminder of how we need to step up and manage well what we're blessed with. We have a beautiful opportunity in front of us, which also comes with an equally important responsibility.
I hope my dumb mistake can inspire you to avoid your own. Heck, I hope my $300 mistake can inspire me to avoid an upcoming $3,000 mistake. If we're not responsible with the little things, it's nearly impossible to be responsible with the big things.
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