I am a technophobe. I hate all these new contraptions. Whenever something goes wrong and I have to fiddle with them, I get so worried about it that I get sick to my stomach. I have absolutely no aptitude for them. You want to know how hopeless I am? I even managed to delete the whole Bible from a Bible study program once.
I recently had a run-in with my TV. Somehow the thing decided to take the picture and squish it in from the sides, elongating all the faces in the process. To make up for that, it chopped off the tops of heads and the bottoms of chins. I tried to fix it myself. A good friend told me there was nothing I could do that could not be undone. She had not reckoned with anyone like me. I hit a button I did not mean to hit and the whole picture disappeared. So I hit it again to undo it, right? Wrong! All I got was a baby blue box telling me there was no signal.
“No signal?” I said aloud to my television. “If you are so smart, tell me something I can’t figure out myself!” I hate it when a machine riles me to the point that I actually talk out loud to it.
After several frantic hours, my good friend arranged a conference call between the tech support people and the two of us. (I don’t like to talk with them. There is no way I can hide the fact that I am an idiot.) We got my picture back, but it took sliding a lever that I was warned never to touch, and never had—I promise! Like I said, I can really mess things up.
During all of this I learned that I have an amazing TV. It can let me watch several channels at once. It can take messages for me. It can lull me to sleep and then turn itself off. I never knew all that. But you know what I want? I want a TV with an on/off switch, a channel changing knob, and a volume knob. I want a TV you can buy off the rack, take home, plug in and watch. Period. Well, maybe I wouldn’t mind if it brought me a cup of coffee every morning. But do they make a TV like that? Of course not.
I have issues with my computer too. I want it to type and print, and I have gotten attached to the email function, as well. But that is all I want. It infuriates me when it tells me that I cannot do what I want to do. Then when it tells me I am doing something illegal, I really get angry. I guess there is a reason Keith keeps his hammer in the shed.
But now that I think about it, we do the same thing to God. How many times do we hear, or even make the statement ourselves, “I don’t think God would mind this.” “I think God will understand.” Or the even more arrogant and judgmental, “I can’t believe God would let this happen,” as if we had a right to approve or disapprove God’s actions.
What would you do if you changed the channel one day, and the TV flipped it to another? After several tries, the baby blue box pops on the screen saying, “You cannot watch that other show. I like this one better.”
What would you do if you tried to delete a file on your computer, and the “save” box kept coming up instead? After several tries that gray box pops up and says, “I don’t want to delete this. I like it. Hit the save button.”
Aren’t we glad God doesn’t have a hammer handy? Not that he couldn’t just create one out of thin air, which emphasizes the point. He is patient, when many times we do not deserve it. I need to take note of my aggravation with the aggravating machines in my life, and make sure I am no longer an aggravating creation to him.
He says it, I do it. Period.
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, 2 Pet 3:9.
Dene Ward
I recently had a run-in with my TV. Somehow the thing decided to take the picture and squish it in from the sides, elongating all the faces in the process. To make up for that, it chopped off the tops of heads and the bottoms of chins. I tried to fix it myself. A good friend told me there was nothing I could do that could not be undone. She had not reckoned with anyone like me. I hit a button I did not mean to hit and the whole picture disappeared. So I hit it again to undo it, right? Wrong! All I got was a baby blue box telling me there was no signal.
“No signal?” I said aloud to my television. “If you are so smart, tell me something I can’t figure out myself!” I hate it when a machine riles me to the point that I actually talk out loud to it.
After several frantic hours, my good friend arranged a conference call between the tech support people and the two of us. (I don’t like to talk with them. There is no way I can hide the fact that I am an idiot.) We got my picture back, but it took sliding a lever that I was warned never to touch, and never had—I promise! Like I said, I can really mess things up.
During all of this I learned that I have an amazing TV. It can let me watch several channels at once. It can take messages for me. It can lull me to sleep and then turn itself off. I never knew all that. But you know what I want? I want a TV with an on/off switch, a channel changing knob, and a volume knob. I want a TV you can buy off the rack, take home, plug in and watch. Period. Well, maybe I wouldn’t mind if it brought me a cup of coffee every morning. But do they make a TV like that? Of course not.
I have issues with my computer too. I want it to type and print, and I have gotten attached to the email function, as well. But that is all I want. It infuriates me when it tells me that I cannot do what I want to do. Then when it tells me I am doing something illegal, I really get angry. I guess there is a reason Keith keeps his hammer in the shed.
But now that I think about it, we do the same thing to God. How many times do we hear, or even make the statement ourselves, “I don’t think God would mind this.” “I think God will understand.” Or the even more arrogant and judgmental, “I can’t believe God would let this happen,” as if we had a right to approve or disapprove God’s actions.
What would you do if you changed the channel one day, and the TV flipped it to another? After several tries, the baby blue box pops on the screen saying, “You cannot watch that other show. I like this one better.”
What would you do if you tried to delete a file on your computer, and the “save” box kept coming up instead? After several tries that gray box pops up and says, “I don’t want to delete this. I like it. Hit the save button.”
Aren’t we glad God doesn’t have a hammer handy? Not that he couldn’t just create one out of thin air, which emphasizes the point. He is patient, when many times we do not deserve it. I need to take note of my aggravation with the aggravating machines in my life, and make sure I am no longer an aggravating creation to him.
He says it, I do it. Period.
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, 2 Pet 3:9.
Dene Ward
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