"Don’t put it off; do it now! Don’t rest until you do.  Save yourself like a gazelle escaping from a hunter, like a bird fleeing from a net. Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and become wise!  Though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work,they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter. But you, lazybones, how long will you sleep? When will you wake up? A little extra sleep, a little more slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—then poverty will pounce on you like a bandit; scarcity will attack you like an armed robber" - Proverbs 6:4-11

The water bill popped into my email box. Well, it dripped in as I hadn’t noticed it straight away. I’m one of those people who doesn’t leave till tomorrow what I can do today. I know that if I put things off – I forget them. Me? I know me.

 There was the news about the £10DR, that my next payment was to be £24 and that there was nothing I need to do.

 Isn’t it reassuring when a company tells you there is nothing to worry about? They have let you know that all is fine with the world. They care about you. Your thought is that all is fine with the world and you can continue with your head above water.

 Really? There are a few pitfalls in thinking like this. I guess utility companies do care about you. They care that they don’t break the law. They care that you pay the next bill. They care that you will stay with them as a customer. They probably don’t actually care about you. That means when you start thinking your bill is OK, start checking things out.

Take your bill and start to question it. What does £10DR mean? I still don’t know, I rather think that it means I owe the company some money. That in itself tells me that all is not well with my world. Do you think I should check what DR means?

 How about the next comment, ‘just pay the £24’. That sounds reasonable, it sounds just like my last bill. I checked. I didn’t pay £24 last time. I paid less. No wonder the water company say, “Don’t worry”, they’re going to get more of my money.

 Then I thought, I’ve checked one thing and found a problem. What if there are some more problems? I wondered if they had the water measurement correct. We pay our water bill on a meter. A meter is the best way to pay your bill if you don’t use much water. I went outside, I hunted out the plastic cover for the meter, dug it out, shone the flashlight down and took the reading. It didn’t look the same as the estimated bill. It wasn’t.

 I could have left it at that but realised I needed to report the new reading on the website. It’s a good job I keep all these things close to hand. It took moments to report it using my secure password. My unique personal password here has 25 letters that I can instantly recall. I have a different password for every account. They all have many letters. I can remember every single one. I know that I had used more water than the estimate, but I reported it. If I delayed the true report I would still have to pay it someday. Better to pay it when it is low than when it is too high. More to the point, reporting the bill means I can keep track of whether that meter is working properly, or whether there is some crazy leakage going on.

What has this got to do with a Christian website? We all know that the money we have in our pocket is God’s money – so why not look after the money properly? More to the point, keeping a check on what we do provides us with a lesson in the world around us.

 Our world is not the place where we can trust everyone around us. We can trust most people, but we can’t trust all people. We should be able to check the activities of others, we should also keep a track on ourselves.

Next time a bill comes into your inbox or pops through the letterbox don’t just assume it is right. Don’t just think it is alright. Check the individual details out, it doesn’t take long, it may save you money, it may save you from a disaster.