“Good Luck Flaunting the Law”
Some laws can be ignored, broken with little, if any, consequences. For example:
• In Colorado, tags may be ripped off pillows without fear of fine or imprisonment. But I become a hardened criminal if I yank off pillow labels in Oklahoma. However, the chances are slim-to-none the pillow police will 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 by the LCB.
• I’m blessed to live in Fort Worth, Texas and not in Maine. In the land where man and moose are friends, people become lawbreakers if they leave their Christmas decorations up after January 14th. Not so in Cowtown! The icicle lights hanging on the Aggie homestead in August remind our neighbors that cooler weather is just around the corner. And the City of Fort Worth 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, your humble Aggie scribe stepped away to refill an ever-emptying 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 singing the glories of God. Although the YouTube videos were playing, there was no audio. Even the ‘volume’ icon was missing.
Hmmm. “What has Bill Gates done to me now? A pox upon him!”
I put on my computer-geek hat and navigated through the computer but failed 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). We were not on hold for three days (third miracle).After explaining our problem, Morgan guided us through more computer tests, but the results were the same. “I suspect the hard drive has failed,” he said with a funeral-drige tone. “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.
My awkward moment of prolonged silence became noticeable.
“You do have a back-up, don’t you?”
“Err . . . well, no . . . not really,” I stuttered. “But I have a few files on a memory key, though,” I said, hoping to save face. Morgan’s awkward moment of prolonged silence became noticeable. “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’s law of failing to back-up my hard drive. If indeed the hard drive failed, I lost all my stories for my book, “Jesus Just Cracks Me Up!” Gone were the research files for manuscripts I have underway. My email contacts disappeared. Writers’ websites went AWOL. Everything wiped clean, joining all of Hillary’s missing documents in cyberspace.
I resigned myself that I’d 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 Job, the Old Testament Patriarch, did. Job trusted God even though he lost all his possessions, health, and family. Amid his indescribable great losses, Job offered sacrifices of praise and worship. God rewarded his faithfulness and restored to Job twice what he lost.
Jesus reminds me not to worry about the future since He implemented a back-up plan for my life. Whatever I may lose, or should I say 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 (Philippians 3:8). 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. I may or may not recover the data, but either way, God is good.
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“Thank you, Lord Jesus, for having a back-up system for each of us. Your back-up plan never fails, and Your firewall is failproof.”
Stay close to Jesus.
P.S. Morgan updated my computer with an air bag that deploys if the hard drive crashes again. This protects my good looks when I bang my head against the screen.
Jimmy Eskew © 2017
THANKFUL 
Jimmy, this is hilarious, even by your high standards of wit. But I must advise you to backup your files in the Cloud. Remember, brother, Jesus is coming back. Where? “On the clouds, with power and great glory”.