I am in the process of transferring my life from a slow computer to a whizzy one. I would like to think that it would be relatively simple and painless. Of course anyone familiar with computers will know that ‘simple’ and ‘painless’ are not words usually associated with them. I may have resembled this man occasionally during the process.

Programs which worked fine on the old computer don’t work well on this one. Tech support people suggest I should tinker with some of the settings in order to make it happen, but that does not seem right. Why should I have to change the internal settings within the operating system of a computer that is running the same software as the old computer?

And then there’s the simple(?) process of transferring my email accounts over. I got it working. Then I got it to stop working. I think I have got it working again. However, if I either send two replies to your email, or send none, please don’t hold a grudge, just politely respond to my error and I will blame the computer (for once I will be right).

Thankfully, because it is stored online, the blog has migrated simply and successfully. I have posted 630 bloggages since I launched this on an unsuspecting world, and over 40,000 of you have at least visited these pages. These are rough figures but it means that on average each bloggage is seen by 63 people! Really? Thank you, especially if you got here by accident and stayed to read!

I wonder if people who become Christians have a similar experience. There will be compatibility problems with old lifestyles and habits. There will be transition problems as they try to bring contact lists and friends with them. They may wonder about some of the things that don’t seem right any more. I think our role as church is to help them make the transition as smoothly as possible without imposing anything on them that is not about Jesus. Simply choosing to follow Jesus is a massive step in itself and I would not want to put anything in anyone’s way. Of course he may want to deal with some things in their life, but he’s doing that with us too, right? When I look at Jesus in the New Testament he seems to go out of his way to make it easy for people to follow him. He uses language and concepts that they understand. He invites, encourages, draws, attracts…

The only people he has a go at and makes it difficult for are the self-righteous, who think they are ok.

Hmmm.

Be blessed, be a blessing.