Index - Posting 31 January 2007 Vol. 3:5
Do not be anxious for anything…
Phil. 4:6 (NIV)
This may appear unnatural to some but I have a very close relationship with my computers; I have four; a desk top, sub notebook and two palmtops (one for back up). When any are not operating properly, I suspend my life until working order is restored. Occasionally I seek professional help, but it is very rare that I cannot find and correct the problem, even if it takes hours. I have even learnt over time, to stay calm as panic disrupts the logic of the necessary diagnostic process. For the last three days I have lived a reclusive life, neglecting necessary pastoral and academic functions and resisting the urge to thump my notebook. After a second sleepless night of seriously contemplating the ultimate defeat – it’s disposal in a non-recycle bin, I returned again to the computer repair shop. I have never been afraid to seek professional help and felt a second attempt at restoration was required before consigning it to the scrap heap. I cannot afford a replacement and certainly not a new one with a different operating system that may crash some of my software programmes that I have nurtured for years since DOS and Windows 3.1. So having decided earlier on in the week and pre-crash, that I couldn’t afford to spend half a month’s groceries on an external hard drive to back up my notebook, it has now cost a whole months groceries to rectify the operating difficulties. And that is life. No ifs and no buts, just an acknowledgement that I cannot second guess myself and these things happen. It’s not fate or a lesson from the Almighty; just the realities of the technological age that we live in. Ironically, one of today’s newspapers carries an article on upgrade rage or upgrage. It’s defined as the emotional response to persistent software upgrades that have the potential to disable previously functioning programmes; that uncontrollable rage experienced when upgrades prove pointless or at worse, cripple one’s computer.
I do know how easy and comfortable it is to stay with the familiar. I have been using the same palm top computer for fifteen years. It has seen countless repairs and replacements, but I have stayed with the basic design and software. It’s eminently knowable. My notebook is over 3 years old and it does what I want it to do. However now I know the but is in the air. It is just a matter of time before I want something different because I need to move on and do other things. I know there is something completely different waiting around the corner, if I choose to embrace it. Not just a different computer, a different operating system and different software but a different way of engaging with the world. A spiritual upgrade without the upgrage. A recharging of the spiritual batteries, a renewed infilling of the Holy Spirit. That is, life itself in all its fullness, without which life is incomplete and which anxiety destroys. We need than ongoing renewing of our spiritual lives as we need water.
And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind, having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude. And put on the new nature, the regenerate self, created in God’s image, Godlike, in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians. 4:23-24 (Amplified)
May the Holy Spirit of God, continue to refresh you, in ways that astound.
Rev Caroline Redfearn ©blackpeoplesministries.com 2007