Sealcoating Contractors – the Great Cover-up

Three times sealcoating contractors have stopped by our home to give us pricing on coating our asphalt driveway. Each time, had I said “yes” we would have wasted our money. They all stopped because they saw either Vickie or me outside – I wonder if the fact that we are “senior citizens” had anything to do with their attempt to separate us from our money.

The last time was typical. The contractor stops, says he is doing work in the immediate area, notices that our driveway needs sealing (which it does), and asks if he can give us a price. I say “yes” and he then measures the driveway and tells me the price. I tell him that I’m going to get other bids, he then says that if I do the work today that he’ll give me a special price, which turns out to be around $500.00 lower than his first price; he tells me his boss (who is not with him) will only allow him to give me the “special” if the work is done today. I thank the contractor and tell him I’ll wait to get bids.

What none of the contractors tell me, but which I know from being in property management, is that there are two sections of our driveway that need repair and that sealcoating these sections will only mask what will become a serious problem if not corrected. If the repairs are not done soon the problem areas will grow and our driveway will be undermined – costing us thousands of dollars to dig out and fill with new asphalt. Sealcoating may make the driveway look good in the short term but a day of reckoning will come.

We had a reputable contractor come and repair the problem areas and next spring he’ll be back and sealcoat our driveway to protect the asphalt – it was too late in the year for the sealcoating to have worked well – the reputable contractor did not want us to waste our money.

One of the great disciplines of life is that of not glossing over our sins – whether individual or collective. When I was younger I was engaged in one great sealcoating project in my own life, I ignored problem areas in my character by pouring religious sealcoating on them in the forms of emotions and new teachings and new experiences and action…lots of action. A moving target is hard to hit, a life in perpetual motion is a life not likely to stand still under the scrutiny of the Holy Spirit and God’s Word. The teaching I exposed myself to was designed to make me feel good, the music and lyrics were geared to make me feel good; I had little, if any, awareness of my narcissism, a narcissism nurtured and unchallenged by my popular Christian environment.

Another way to state the above discipline is to say that one of the great disciplines of life is to allow the Holy Spirit and God’s Word to examine our hearts and minds on an ongoing basis, to submit to Christ in repentance to the conviction of sin and unrighteousness and character defects that God’s Word and the Holy Spirit reveal in us. To say with the Psalmist, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties, and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting,” (Psalm 139:23 – 24).  

We need to know who we are in Christ, we need to know our identity in Him and to know that the Trinity lives within us – but we also need to know that the Trinity does not come to us in order to gloss over sin, for Christ Jesus came to atone for our sins and became the object of Divine judgment on our behalf, bearing our sins on the Cross. To gloss over my sin is to gloss over the death of Jesus Christ.

There are a lot of sealcoating messages in the church world, promising us a good price today if we will only avail ourselves of today’s “special” – they lead to eventual ruin.

Is there something in my life today that I am glossing over? 

What about you? 

“For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account,” (Hebrews 4:12 – 13).