The Computer Crash of 2009

My computer crashed Sunday night... a fate I have always feared. The thought of a computer crashing and all being lost has been something I have worried about. I do not even download all the pictures off my camera because of such a possibility. It could have been devastating but thanks to D, he backed up my computer on an external hard drive over the Thanksgiving holiday so only December and part of January was lost... but not completely. The work I did during that time could be retrieved from another source and remember my obsession with leaving the picture images on the camera?

Just hours before The Computer Crash of 2009, I had painstakingly gone through all the pictures and had them sized and ready to put on the blog for my Christmas Part Three post. When I returned following church, ready to load them and mark that off my list of things to do for the week everything changed.

After working on the laptop for a few days, I feel more settled sitting at my desk looking at this screen for some reason.

I have something I wanted to share and was going to right after the third Christmas post but since I am working on that draft and interrupted the order of my posts anyway I wanted to post it today.

I have several devotional books and receive several devotionals by e-mail each day. There are days, especially tough ones, when I read a devotional and it seems like it is written just for me at the very moment I need it.

Last week, I had one of those days and read the devotional below and it was so appropriate for that day and every day since I had to type it out and put it where I could see it at my desk. I do not know who wrote it as it came from The Word For You Today, a quarterly devotional we receive from church, but it speaks loudly to me.

“The wisdom that is from above is … peaceable.” James 3:17 NKJV

Keep Your Peace

Understand this: the Devil knows that God’s Word can only be “sown in peace”, so he will do everything he can to keep you from receiving it and being blessed by it. That’s why you must do whatever it takes to keep your peace. There’s power in peace! If the Devil can’t get you upset he has no power over you. He only gains control when you “lose it”. He plans to get you upset in order to steal your peace, confuse you and make you run in circles. Don’t let him.

James writes, “The wisdom that is from above is … peaceable”. In The Message, Eugene Peterson paraphrases this Scripture: “Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy robust community that lives right with God and enjoys its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.” (v. 17-18 TM). Notice getting along with others can be “hard work”.

So, next time you get worked up about some issue, ask yourself, “What’s the enemy trying to do here? If I give in to these emotions what will the result be?” When you’re stressed out you lose your joy, and when you lose your joy you lose your strength because “the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Ne 8:10). So today, pray, exercise self-control, and keep your peace.