When I reflect on God’s grace, whatever I have gained from knowing Christ far outweighs whatever I may have loss since I became his follower

—Philippians 3:8 (King Jimmy Translation).

“Good Luck Flaunting the Law”

 

Some laws can be ignored with little, if any, consequences. For example:

• Tags may be ripped off pillows and mattresses in Colorado without fear of fine or imprisonment. But when I take these same pillows into Oklahoma, I become a hardened criminal. However, the chances are slim-to-none the pillow police will stop me and throw me in the slammer for possession of an illegally altered-pillow(s).
• In Nevada, the law is clear: No! —You cannot buy drinks for more than three people at a time. Meh! I can flaunt that ordinance and be the most popular guy at the bar 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 14th. 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 example:

• If I jump off the roof (removing the plastic Santa), despite flapping my arms at 500 strokes per second, 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.

While writing another Pulitzer Prize winning story, I stepped away to refill my coffee mug. In the brief moments I was away, Microsoft did an unwanted automatic update on my computer. It couldn’t have come at a worse time. Frustrated, I waited till the updates were completed, hoping my inspiration would not slip into never-never land. I rebooted and resumed writing my suspense-filled, inspirational story. As I hammered on my keyboard, I noticed something different. 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, failing to un-date the updates. After banging my head in frustration, I did what I should have done in the first place: I called Mrs. Aggie. With her 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.

We needed a miracle and called technical support. God answered our prayer. A technician named Morgan, who spoke excellent English (first miracle), immediately answered (second miracle) and we were not on hold for three days (third miracle). We explained what happened, and regardless of what we tried, we got the same maddening results.

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 used in Sunday school lessons wandered through 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. Somehow, I’ve got to save face. “But 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 to be excellent.

I broke the computer-world 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! Gone were the research files for manuscripts underway. My email contacts disappeared. Writers’ websites went AWOL. Everything was 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, for eating the hard drive. 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 may lose, or what I release, for Christ’s sake in my earthly journey, the joy of knowing God and having his presence in my life surpasses what I willingly gave up. Best of all, Jesus’ back-up plan is guaranteed never to fail. None of his eternal promises on his hard drive are lost.

Sounds like a good plan to me.

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

Thank you, Lord, for having a back-up system for each of us when we trust you for our salvation. Your back-up plan never fails, and your firewall is failproof.

 

Stay close to Jesus.

Jimmy

P.S. Morgan updated my computer with an air bag that deploys if the hard drive crashes. This prevents me from banging my head in frustration against the computer.

Jimmy Eskew © 2017