“For what credit is there if, when you sin (hit your thumb with a hammer) and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it, you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God” (I Peter 2:20). “Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.”(Eph. 2:26-27).
Hey gang, I have learned, in the past
two months, these two verses go together. I have also learned what the
person who coined the saying, “if it
works, do not fix it”, meant. I have also learned that I do not
have the slightest clue what to do, when one of the weird screens that I have
never seen before, comes up on the computer; one that has no connection with
what I am trying to do!
If it does not disappear when I
reboot, I am dead in the water until I can call Paul, my friendly computer guru,
or find a six or seven year old lad or lassie who knows far more about such
things than I will ever know.
Our computer internet and phone
provider merged with another company and we were advised that we must upgrade
our equipment to gain all the wondrous advantages the new company was offering
and the carrot was it, would cost less per month and make it much more
convenient. Now if you believe that I have a wonderful piece of land
just off the coast of Miami that I will sell to you are bargain prices.
My question to the upgrade advocate –
how much pain and agony is attached to getting all the bugs worked out until my
level of understanding is acclimated to using the new system? Oh, no
worry! This is a tested and proven, bug- free mechanism that even a 79
year old, that does not understand the “For Dummy’s books’, can become
proficient within minutes.
After several weeks and more than
twenty hours of listening to a multitude of so called technicians, my bride
packed up the entire system and went back to the place it was purchased
and announced I do not leave here until this thing is doing what you said it
would do or we go back to the old system.
Okay, what does that have to do with
the Scripture of the day? First I thought I had my anger totally under
control and could handle about any circumstance. Wrong! I wanted to
throw the computer down the basement stairs. I also learned that my
patience was not as secure as I thought it was. Perhaps that is what this
whole trip through the wilderness was all about. I must confess I did
indeed go to bed very angry some nights and I must admit that my patience was
at best – tarnished!
Soooo, my young friends, keep in mind
that the devil waits for his chance to set your patience- control on tilt and
to build a fire in your anger controls. But I also learned that, if I
take a moment or two and say, “Okay God, If you can’t handle this we are both
in trouble”; it helps. He has
never failed. Prayer changes ME!
The computer is working fine as I
write this and my anger has gone underground again waiting for another
opportunity to destroy my patience. But I am better equipped to handle it,
I have learned to use the James method: "Consider it all joy, my brethren,
when you encounter various trial, knowing the testing of your faith produces
endurance" (James 1:3-4). The computer has given me a crash
course in implementing these words of wisdom.
Blessings,
Gramps
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