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Modem Madness and Humble Pie
by Susan Gurney 2 Chronicles 7:14 "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." (NIV) James 4:10 "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up." (NIV) I Peter 5:5b "All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.'" (NIV) My husband and I spent a frustrating two weeks trying to "fix" our computer in our own strength and wisdom. This was not a good thing, as neither of us are hardly what you would call computer experts. We started out by doing what we thought was the right thing. We needed a new, speedier processor, so instead of trying to put one in ourselves, we took it to a computer shop to have it done. However, through a series of errors on the part of that shop, our computer "crashed and burned", making it necessary to purchase a new computer from that shop. Then came a series of modem problems in the new computer requiring two trips back to the un-air-conditioned computer shop on the hottest day of the year. With the first modem we could not get on the Internet at all...then the next modem allowed us to get on the Internet, but it wouldn't let us do anything once we got there! At this point we had finally given up trying to get any real help from the first computer shop...so we went in search of another shop to buy another--more expensive--modem. This time we were determined to put the modem in ourselves and "save some money." Surely after all our previous tinkering trying to get the other modems to work we were now "experts" on how to install a really good modem? The directions looked sooo simple... After many more hours of frustrating tinkering by each of us--and at the point where my husband and I were very close to never speaking to each other again--the computer finally totally shut down to protect itself from any more of our abuse! Thinking we had destroyed yet another computer, we decided to take it in to the nice man at the second shop where we bought the last modem and have him take care of it. Miracle of miracles the nice man fixed the computer, installed a fourth modem, tested everything, charged us $80 and had us pick it up the very next day. The computer and modem worked perfectly. It took the true computer expert exactly one and a half hours to do what neither of us or the previous computer shop had been able to do in all of the previous two frustrating weeks! Remember what I said about doing all this in our own strength and wisdom? In all that time we did not ask God what He wanted us to do with our computer--we just forged ahead in our own very limited knowledge and pride to try and do it all by ourselves. When we finally turned it over to Him, He led us to the place with all the answers. How many times do we try to handle our daily problems on our own--only to find we are getting ourselves deeper and deeper into trouble? We often do this because we are too proud to ask God for help. It takes humility to admit you can't do something on your own and to ask God for help. God longs for us to look to Him and His Word, the Bible, for the answers to all our problems. We are not the experts in this giant puzzle called life. God is the Only and Ultimate Expert. He put us all together and knows all about us. Have you tried humbling yourself and putting God, the True Expert, in charge? Susan Gurney writes devotionals, poetry, short stories, memoirs, and nonfiction on family history, faith and nature. She has experience writing/editing church and family newsletters. Find Susan at http://ssimonsgurney.christianblogsites.com/blog/ Copyright 2013 Susan Simons Gurney Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |