THANKFUL

If you try to hold onto your Christ-less lifestyle, you will not find the life that matters, but if you live identified with Christ, will find true purpose and contentment in life—Luke 9:24 (King Jimmy Translation).

I Broke the Law, and the Law Won

 Some laws can be broken without consequences. For instance:

• Although the law declares occupants must wear a seatbelt while in the car, I can ride unbuckled and get away with it. However, if Mrs. Aggie is behind the wheel, wisdom dictates I buckle up.
• In Nevada, even though the law says ‘No, you cannot buy drinks for more than three people at a time,’ I can flaunt that ordinance and never fear apprehension.
• Aren’t we blessed to live in Texas and not in Maine? In the land where man and moose are friends, it’s against the law to leave your Christmas decorations up after January 14. The icicles hanging on the Aggie homestead in August remind us that cooler weather is just around the corner. And the City of Grapevine has never threatened me with a stiff fine for leaving the lighted, plastic Santa Claus in the chimney year-round.

Other laws cannot be broken and gotten away with. For instance:

• If I jump off the roof (removing the plastic Santa), despite wildly flapping my arms, the law of gravity prevails.
• If I drive 38 mph in a 30 mph zone in Sonora, Texas, officer Medrano wins.
• Another immutable law: if you own a computer, you must have a back-up system since you will have a failure at some time.

Last week, without warning, Microsoft did their unwanted automatic updates that they randomly do at the most inconvenient time. Once the updates were completed, I rebooted and resumed writing my Pulitzer Prize-winning inspirational story. As I hammered out my suspense-filled thriller I noticed something was wrong. The praise and worship music, which plays softly while I write, wasn’t crooning the glories of God. Although, the You Tube videos were playing, there was no audio. Even the ‘volume’ icon was missing.

What has Bill Gates done to me now? A pox upon him!

Your humble Aggie scribe navigated through the computer to un-date the unsolicited updates. With Mrs. Aggie’s computer skills on display, we left-clicked and right-clicked more Windows^® than featured in a Pella^® catalogue. Finally, success. We high-fived, rebooted and waited . . . and waited.

Nothing. Just a blank screen.

With our pride on the back shelf, we asked God for a miracle and called technical support. God answered our prayer. A technician named Morgan, who spoke excellent English, immediately answered and we weren’t on hold for three days. We explained what happened to the computer, what we did, but got the same frustrating results. “I haven’t been this distraught since I found out Santa Claus wasn’t real,” I said.

“I know the feeling,” Morgan emphasized with me. “I was crushed to find out the Easter bunny wasn’t real, too.”

He guided us through more computer tests but the results were the same. “Oh, brother,” Morgan said in a funeral-drige tone. “I suspect the hard drive has failed. You need to send me your computer for repair.”

Words not found in Sunday school lessons popped into my mind.

“It’s a good thing you have a back-up,” Morgan said.

Here is where my awkward moment of prolonged silence became noticeable.

“You do have a back-up, don’t you?”

“Err . . . well, no . . . not really,” I stuttered, hoping to somehow save face. “I have a few files on a memory key, though.”

Morgan’s silence shattered my eardrums. “Ohhh,” he finally muttered. “You’re not a very smart Aggie, are you?”

I no longer considered Morgan’s English excellent.

I broke the law of failing to back-up my hard drive. If indeed the hard drive failed, I’ve lost all my stories for my book, Jesus Just Cracks Me Up! All the research files for manuscripts I had underway are gone. Most of my email contacts are unavailable. Writers’ websites are missing. Everything is gone, joining all of Hillary’s missing documents in cyberspace.

I resigned myself that I may have to start over with my writings and stories. The devil didn’t do it. I can’t blame Congress, climate change, or Skipper, my mischievous dachshund. I have no one to blame but myself for my foolish procrastination to get a back-up system.

But God is good. It’s not like I lost everything as the Old Testament Patriarch Job did. Job trusted God even though he lost all his possessions, his health, even his children. Despite Job’s great losses, he offered sacrifices of praise and worship to God. Because of Job’s faithfulness, God eventually restored to him twice what he lost.

Jesus reminds me not to worry about the future since he implemented a back-up plan for my life before I was born.

That’s amazing.

Whatever I might lose during this earthly life for being a Christ-follower, he will replace with a greater, more satisfying contentment here. Then when he is ready, he’ll usher me into my heavenly home. Best of all, Jesus’ back-up plan is guaranteed never to fail. None of his eternal promises are lost.

Sounds like a good plan to me.

God’s promise causes me to worship him despite the possibility I’ve lost all my data. In his mercy, I may recover the data. Either way, God is good.

Lord, thank you for having a back-up system for each one of us when we trust in what you have done for our salvation. It’s nothing we did. It is your entire back-up plan because you do not want anyone to be lost and miss spending eternity with you.

Stay close to Jesus.

Jimmy

Following Job’s example, I offered my most valuable possession as a sacrifice to God—my Duck Dynasty camo hat—on the grill.

Jimmy Eskew © 2016