A Rubber Band Simile

I have the tendency to get struck by the weirdest comparisons. ;)
My “other job” is submitting blueprints to the City Building Department for my family’s drafting business.
If you spend any time regularly in the City Building department you will notice two things. Everyone has to wait and rubber bands are very important.
Yes, they hold our plans together, but they also provide another important function. Amusement.
As the minutes drag on we begin by flicking and rolling them along the plans. Before long we’ll have one in our hands, twisting and bouncing between our fingers.
Then at last one of our names is called from the waiting list. We gather up our plans and papers and charge the counter like we will lose our position if we wait for more than thirty seconds.
What we usually fail to notice in the rush to the counter is that we’ve woven the rubber band around one of our fingers like a ring. I usually don’t realize it until my fingers start to feel cramped.
After years of going through this routine I’ve become rather magnetic with rubber bands. If there is one within my range it usually ends up in my hands without much thought and then I’ll find it twisted around one my fingers sometime later.
I found one completely twisted around my pinky-finger yesterday. As odd as this may sound, the first thought that struck me was, “I wonder how many people are walking around absentmindedly attached to bad habits and bad attitudes.” Strange, I know, but that’s how this post started.
God does call us to have an “excellent spirit.” (Daniel 6:3).
Yes, we may not lie, steal, or cheat, but we have a tendency to think we have the right to be a little bit short with people because we’re having a bad day, or leave a mess for others to clean up, or ignore other people’s rules because we don’t like them.
As one of my favorite teachers is fond of saying, “When a store says, ‘Please leave your cart here,’ that means, ‘Please leave your cart here,’ not, ‘Leave your cart wherever and make the employees run all over the parking in the dead of winter or height of summer.’”
You think that’s too small to make much of a difference? Winding rubber bands around your fingers might be a small thing, but it is not particularly safe. Circulation does eventually get cut off.
What seems small and unimportant now can eventually add up to be the difference between average lives and excellent lives.