We have acquired a new laptop at church. It was well overdue as the previous one was only one step more advanced than clockwork and although it had served us well, was no longer able to keep up with us. It will be used on much less strenuous duties, like being put out to pasture!
Of course, as all of us know, setting up a new computer is not easy. They try to be intuitive but the intuition is not always as clever as the programmers think it is, and sometimes it guesses what you want and completely misses the point. Last week it was being a stroppy teenager and refusing to talk to anyone except through electronic grunts and sighs which nothing else could interpret. I am chuffed with myself that I have now managed to get it to talk happily to the rest of the world via our church network, and will sent stuff to our church networked printer. Parenting skills to the fore!
I do admit to being rather frustrated when the computer was going through its teenage phase, and hope that it won’t regress. There was nothing obvious that I was doing wrong. I had fed it the correct passwords, I had checked and rechecked all the settings. I had even finally carried out the tech support remedy for all problems and turned it off and on again.
I think God must have similar thoughts about us. There are times when we behave like spiritual adolescents – getting in a huff when things don’t go our way, shouting “It’s not fair!”, slamming spiritual doors on our way out when God wants us to do something we don’t want to (see Jonah as an example!), and even reducing our communication with him to neanderthal grunts rather than the flow of conversation that he longs for.
But he’s far more patient with us than I have ever been with an acne-ridden computer (or even my children). He doesn’t attempt a tech support reboot. He patiently waits for us to see that he’s right, he accepts all our flouncing and huffing, and he gently asks us to be still and let him be God.
Cue deep breath, gentle relaxing and prayerful contemplation…
teenager definition:
A Teenager is…
A person who can’t remember to walk the dog but never forgets a phone number.
A weight watcher who goes on a diet by giving up chocolate bars before breakfast.
A youngster who receives his/her allowance on Monday, spends it on Tuesday, and borrows from his/her best friend on Wednesday.
Someone who can hear a song by The Scissor Sisters played three blocks away but not his mother calling from the next room.
A whizz who can operate the latest computer without a lesson but can’t make a bed.
A student who will spend 12 minutes studying for her history exam and 12 hours for her driver’s licence.
A youngster who is well informed about anything he doesn’t have to study.
An enthusiast who has the energy to ride a bike for miles, but is usually too tired to dry the dishes.
A connoisseur of two kinds of fine music: Loud and Very Loud.
A young woman who loves the cat and tolerates her brother.
A person who is always late for dinner but always on time for a rock concert.
A romantic who never falls in love more than once a week.
A budding beauty who never smiles until her braces come off.
A boy who can sleep until noon on any Saturday when he suspects the lawn needs mowing.
An original thinker who is positive that her parents were never teenagers and so will never understand them.
nukelearfishing 
Leave a comment