Dead stop



            When Elsa and I go for our walks, due to her age, I allow her to lead and decide how fast and far we will go. She does, however, possess the annoying habit of quite suddenly and without warning come to a dead stop directly in front of me. If I am not paying attention, I will stumble and fall.
            Last week, my laptop did a very similar move and came to a dead stop giving me a black screen and only a black screen. So many emotions coursed through me as I stared at the screen; anger, heartache, devastation to name a few. I keep my writings and other documents for volunteer work that I do that are particularly important to me. I walked away from it and stressed about it for a bit. Then I prayed and went to bed. After work the following day I decided to see if I could change the video card (as recommended by friends) so I unplugged it, removed the battery and opened the back panel, stared at the innards, blew away some dust and slapped it a couple times. (I could not discern the video card). I put it all back together and turned it on, lo and behold, it worked! I immediately backed up my documents and gave thanks to God.
            I think God gives us such dead stops when we aren’t paying attention. We go along from day to day with our noses to the grindstone and we neglect to see the works of God in our lives. For myself, I was wrapped up in details of a worthy project but my focus left out God. My blank screen reminded me that I am not the one in ultimate control. The next time he gives you a dead stop, just remember, God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.
Psalm 46: 8-10 “Come and see what the Lord has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
           

Posted by

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How are you?

Image
            When I wake, one of the first things I do is say, “Good morning God!” Some days are more enthusiastic than others. When I greet another human being, I usually follow that greeting with, “how are you?” This morning it occurred to me that I don’t ask God how he is. I have been contemplating this idea, how are you God? Obviously, given his attributes of omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience it is easy to follow the train of thought that he has everything in check. Despite that; I think of him in human terms and I can’t help but feel he is; not mad but disappointed (cringe). When he looks at creation, like a parent gazing on the wreckage of a kid’s toy room, wouldn’t there be disappointment?             As I contemplated that, my meandering mind led me to consider guilt. The guilt that leads to the disappointment of others. Every culture I have known lays claim t...
Read more

I Don't Understand

Image
              I was walking with my good friend Patti this morning as we do most Saturdays, and we were discussing dependance on God versus a bank account when from out of my coat pocket my phone speaks and says, “I don’t understand.” In the moment it made us chuckle, but it is so appropriate because the phone (a worldly item) can’t understand that kind of faith. The world doesn’t understand that kind of faith. I have often heard stories of men and women of faith totally dependent on God, prayers being answered in supernatural ways at the very last minute. (Read up on George Mueller who ran an orphanage depending entirely on God). I desire that type of faith because try as I might, at times I still lean on my bank accounts and fear can creep in when my funds are low.             There is no way to completely understand the love of God, His ways are incomprehensible to the...
Read more

Masterpiece

Image
              As a young person, I was fond of painting, not great at it but reasonable. I set it aside when I fell in love and got married. In these days of isolation I needed to find some other ways to occupy myself other than baking and decided to get back to my paint brushes.   To get used to handling the brushes again I got myself a paint by number,             If you have never tried one of these let me give you a little insight. You receive a canvas with an image divided up into numbered areas and little pots of paint with corresponding numbers. Then you begin a sort of scavenger hunt trying to fill in all the spots of a particular number. Sounds simple enough, however some of these areas are so tiny they are easily overlooked. The tiny spots are important though, they give that little flourish that can draw the eye or round out an object.    ...
Read more