S04E044, That Sinking Feeling, Andy B 2 Minute Video

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"Broken beyond repair." "Needs some TLC." "Don’t know what’s wrong, but it’s yours if you want it."

Looking through Facebook Marketplace at “FREE STUFF” and you can be surprised by what people give away for free.

Now, admittedly, some of that free stuff is not. There are people who list as free, but have no intention of giving it away for free – they’re just hoping to get more ‘hits’ of people looking at something they wish to sell. To be honest, that’s just a bit foolish.

There are others who clearly, simply, don’t wish to take something they’ve destroyed to the local tip themselves, so are hoping you’ll take their “Nearly New, free 72” SMART TV”, even listing all of the connections it has - that also just happens to have fallen off their wall, judging by the dent and smashed screen.

Some things break, and are beyond economical repair. Others, simply need a quick fix and they’re as good as new. The difference between those two things, and knowing the difference between those two things, is the difference between a bargain, and a white elephant.

And, so it is with my recently purchased, used, desk chair.

Despite checking it, before I bought it, it drops every so often, because the hydraulic ram is worn, or faulty, or both.

However, it’s a super comfy chair, and looks great. Thanks to the internet, I can happily use this for many years to come because, as it turns out, there are some super simple ways of making it keep going.

But, how glad are we, as followers of Jesus Christ, that He does not abandon us when we appear to be faulty?

How grateful are we that He does not ever see us as beyond economical repair or not worth his time and attention?

Just a thought...

Andy B

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0:00
So, another Andy B 2 Minute Video and I don't know if you've ever had this experience of sitting on a chair with a hydraulic ram in the middle, so that you can lift the chair up, or let it drop down, relative to the height of you, the legs, the table height, all that kind of stuff. And they're great. They're a bit more comfy when you sit on it, they kind of bounce a bit. And it's good. And I like these chairs. We've got quite a few in the house. But we bought another one, a used one, locally, and I really liked it. It was really good. It was really cheap. I needed one quite badly, and here we go, we've got one. Great! I could pretty much walk away from my house, to this person and pick it up. It was really good.

0:37
And I get it home. And I'm thinking well, I hope it doesn't sink. I hope it doesn't just, over time, just keep getting lower, and lower. And it turns out it does. And, in the past when we've had a chair that's done that, to be honest, I've binned it, thinking that was the end of that chair.

0:51
However, with the joy of a keyboard, the internet and a computer screen, I've discovered they're actually fairly simple to fix. And there's a few things you can do. You can put, what's called, a jubilee clip, on on the ram, the, the pipe inside. And you can tighten that off, and it stops the chair dropping. A bit drastic!

1:09
You can get some domestic plumbing pipe, the thin stuff, and you can wrap that around and that acts as a bit of a buffer to stop it sinking down. Or, and this really surprised me, you can get some squirty stuff, and squirt it into the top, where it goes into the, the plastic part of the base. And when you squirt it in, it kind of creates a pressure, somehow, well the person who's writing this said, 'I don't know how, but I fix loads of chairs this way'. And I thought, well, that's ridiculous. What can it hurt? So I got some squirty stuff and I squirted it in the hole. And it's, it's the stuff that gets rid of rust. It's quite good. Everyone uses it as a lubricant. It isn't!

1:44
Anyway, I squirted it in and now the chair isn't sinking.

1:48
How often in life have we got things where we just want to think, 'oh, it's broken. Let's just toss it to one side'.

1:54
How grateful are we that God doesn't do that with us?

1:57
How blessed are we that God doesn't think 'oh, well, they're sinking. That's it. They're done. Off you go'.

2:03
How grateful Are you that God takes the time to look after us, to care for us, to help us to get going again, to be as fully functional as we could ever be?

2:13
This chair was being thrown out. We picked it up. It's not great. It's defective. So I've repaired it.

2:19
Now this particular fix, with a squirty spray, it seems to last maybe 3 to 6 months according to this this person on the website, that I found. Well that's okay, I've got a really cool chair.

2:32
Let's be glad that God doesn't just throw us away, when He spots, and finds, those flaws in us, but takes the time to make them work.

2:43
Just a thought