One of the repeated problems on our roads is the way potholes appear from nowhere. A pothole starts with a low point which might be in a dip left during construction or by heavy vehicles pounding it or by a crack in faulty materials. The water collects in the dip and softens the surface. Every time a tyre squishes down into the puddle, it squirts disturbed water everywhere. The water will drain back into the depression. But the sludge won’t. It settles onto the road and is whisked away by traffic. Each splash of muddy water digs the hole deeper. It’s obvious - the longer you leave a pothole unfixed, the worse it will get. 

We can see potholes in human life. Recent scandals in the money markets; international arguments  about  whether Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; the woman who kidnapped her own daughter in this country. Each show how an issue growing with constant repetition into something destructive.  We must learn that the longer we try to paper over the cracks, the deeper the hole we dig ourselves.

 

Paradoxically, potholes become more severe when they happen in a tarmac or concrete road. Once that uniform hard crust is cracked, water gets through and softens the foundations underneath. Under the relentless pounding of daily traffic, the illusion of a smooth surface breaks up and exposes the softer, spongier, weaker inside beneath the hard surface. Under the harder road surface, softer layers immediately dissolve into a cavern which can only grow deeper….and deeper. Finally the road collapses. Disaster!

 

 

There’s only one solution for a pothole - fix it. And fix it now. Make amends; make repairs; make changes. Humanity, as a whole, history suggests, rarely do, until their particular pothole has turned into a sinkhole.

 

Get the point? When apologies are required, make them. When boils fester, lance them. When malignancies threaten the whole body, excise them. That is Jesus’ advice. Remember - Putting off dealing with a problem never does deal with it.