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What Can We Learn From BP's Mistake?
by Randy Todd on 07/15/2010 — 0 Comments
It's Day 87 of the biggest oil leak in U.S. history. A mistake that is leaking an estimated 60,000 barrels of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico.
It's Day 87 of the biggest oil leak in U.S. history. The U.S. government estimates that 60,000 barrels of oil a day are leaking out of the British Petroleum Macondo oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. It was all the way back on April 20, 2010 that an explosion killed eleven workers and oil began spewing out into the Gulf of Mexico. It is a colossal mess that will have a devastating toll on the entire region for years to come. How many other lives have been and will be lost as a result of the spill? What does the future hold for the Gulf and the coasts that have been hit by the oil sheen, tar balls, and tar mats? What impact will this disaster have on the ecology and economy of the rest of the world? Right now one can only wonder. Only time will tell. Hopefully today BP will finally be able to cap the well and stop the leak, but will the world ever be the same?
It's easy for us to question the costly and devastating mistakes of others, but what about our own mistakes? What will be the lasting and unalterable impact of selfish moments in my life? Who was hurt? How long will it take for the emotional wounds to heal? Will the scars remain forever? What relationships will never be the same? What doors were closed? What bridges were burned? How will all of this impact my children, my children's children, and beyond? This is especially true of those sinful habits that we opened in our souls and have not yet been able to cap. The sin is still leaking out, gushing out at times, and we don't know how to stop it. Or are we even trying? What Day is it for you? I'm way past Day 87.
If you think that this is a bit of melodramatic overreaching, just consider the story of Adam and Eve. Their mistake has had universal implications that remain to this very day. Why do we suppose that our mistakes—although they are hopefully not chronicled for the whole world to read about—are much more limited in their scope? My mistakes, failures, sins, angry outbursts, addictions, resentment, indifference, and selfishness will have negative consequences that reach far beyond me. It will be like a ripple on a lake that expands to an ever wider span across the surface of the water. People that I will never meet will somehow suffer a negative moment because of something I started a long time ago.
Here's the encouraging part of this parable. It works both ways. You and I can also have an impact for good in this world by choosing to do good things, sacrificing for the sake of others, being gentle, kind, compassionate and merciful.
Cap the leaks of everything crude, everything that contaminates body, soul, and spirit, and everything that pollutes our minds and destroys what is precious in our world. Dig deep and find the better things that reside within you. Let them overflow in your life and change your world.