Message summary: Today let us value all work that benefits others, including the plumber. "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord" (Colossians 3:23).

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"The rest of the deeds of Hezekiah and all his might and how he made the pool and the conduit and brought water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?" (2 Kings 20:20). "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord" (Colossians 3:23).

For some time we have had a periodic odor in our home that shall I say, does not smell like roses. Mike, a longtime friend, removed some flooring and we discovered that there was a crack in the waste pipe leaving our house, likely going back to when the home was constructed nearly 40 years ago. At that time they tried to fix the crack with plumbers putty but over time the "fix" ceased to be effective and thus the recent odors.

Today we have plumbers here from JK Mechanical, who will repair the crack, likely needing to replace somefittings and pipes. Although this problem has been out of sight it certainly has not been out of smell! We will certainly be grateful when it's repaired.

Plumbers are on the front lines of public health. If your plumbing stops working you can easily have a crisis and a mess to deal with.

Indoor plumbing is one of the many easily taken for granted blessings of modern living. How many reading this have ever had to carry water in a jug on your head to get it into the house?

Brooksyne's grandparents had no indoor plumbing for years in their very simple house in Arkansas. They had a deep well and dropped a two gallon bucket deep into the water and then drew it up by a long rope on a pulley to supply them with water. But when it dried up, as it often did during the summer months, they carried buckets to the spring fed creek over half a mile from their house.

The plumbing in our houses provide fresh potable water that comes into our house and runs through it, essentially invisible, till needed. Then a system to get the waste water out, reducing the risk of waterborne diseases and contamination. If you are really blessed you even have hot water! But if either the inflow or the outflow (as in our case) stops working properly you will quickly realize the value of the plumber.

Indoor plumbing is a relatively recent innovation in human history. And billions of people still don't have it. According to UNICEF "around 60 percent of the world's population — 4.5 billion people — either have no toilet at home or one that doesn't safely manage human waste".

My grandparents on Mom's side did not have indoor plumbing in their small house in Harwood Missouri till they were in their 60's and Brooksyne's grandparents, who lived in the Arkansas mountains, were in their 70's.

My dad, who was a plumber among other trades he had learned at the prestigious SOHK*, installed my grandparents' indoor plumbing, including an indoor bathroom, when he and Mom got married in the mid-1940's.

In my childhood they still had the old water cistern with a hand pump beside the house although we were told to never drink from it. But they still maintained and periodically used the old three-seater outhouse all through my childhood in the late 50's and 60's. It was especially helpful when we had large family gatherings! We consider how many now in America have never used an old-fashioned outhouse, though many of them have used a porta-pottie!

King Hezekiah was one of the good kings who did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. In the record of his life we read, "The rest of the deeds of Hezekiah and all his might are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?" (2 Kings 20:20).

However injected into this sentence is a deed the historian apparently recognized as notable enough to include concerning Hezekiah: "how he made the pool and the conduit and brought water into the city". In reading through our Bible we may tend to gloss over this detail but it was a significant achievement. The pool was some type of reservoir to store water and the conduit were pipes to distribute it. The populace surely valued this plumbing innovation!

Today let us value all work that benefits others, including the work of the plumber. "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord" (Colossians 3:23).

B e encouraged today! Hebrews 3:13