Blue Screen of Death, Backing up your Computer and thoughts on being ready with God

My present laptop is now my longest lasting laptop (8 years old!).  I really don’t want to get a new one because I have Bible Works software on it and Bible Works is no longer in business and available and they are the Bible softeware that I most prefer.  But maybe the deeper reason is that I just got so use to my laptop and don’t want to change anything.

Last night when I shut down my computer there was just a blank blue screen and the computer couldn’t do anything.  It was like that the whole time.  I lower my laptop screen and this morning it was the same.  I turned it on and off and it was the same.

I prayed and asked others to pray and by God’s mercy it started working normally again.  My biggest fears was all the sermon outlines and teaching courses outlines I have taught over the years which would be helpful for me when I am asked to teach overseas and at other churches, since they are literally hundreds of messages with thousands of hours of studies poured into them.

I was thinking to myself I should have backed up the computer to an external hard drive.  I have been putting it off for a while now.  While the computer was still unable to work I started wondering when was the last time I backed up the documents on my computer to my external hard drive.  I thought to myself it must have been a year and no more than a year and a half ago.

So when by God’s grace my computer just started working right now I thought the first thing I need to do was back up everything.  I decided to look at my external hard drive to see when the last back up was; it was in 2018!  Then I thought about how 2018 to the present has really been the most optimized productivity of the amount of lessons and teachings I have taught; and all that would have been lost if all I have was things saved only up to 2018!

Two spiritual thoughts occurred to me with this.

First it was a moment to reflect that since 2018 I have grown spiritually.  I have also taught better than I did before compared to the first half of my time in ministry.  Of course I have a lot to grow still; but sometimes we should reflect and be thankful to God who sanctifies and mature us.  There’s a wrong response of being prideful when we think of how we have changed; but if we understand it is God’s grace that transforms us we don’t have room for pride but thanksgiving to God and praise to God, with an attitude of humility.  Truly understanding God’s grace does not mean we deny God working and changing us; that can be driven by false humility which is actually a form of pride.  But true understanding of grace means we see things truthfully, including acknowledging God’s changing us and transforming us; but we know the truth it is God’s work in us and so we praise Him for His grace.

Secondly it also made me think of how often put things off that they are supposed to do; I thought I only put off backing up my computer for only a year; we often judge ourselves better than we really are!  But its been for years since 2018!  That’s five years!  We may put off things God wants us to do; and we think we still have time, not realizing time is passing by quickly.  And the worst thing you can put off not doing is being right with God.  The consequences is too great (hell, eternal punishment, etc).  But fortunately there’s good news: There is a way to be right with God, and you can be right with God right now if you understand how you sinned against God.  Trust in Jesus Christ.  Trust the Person name Jesus who is fully God becoming fully man; and as a Man Jesus fulfilled all the righteous requirement of the Law that we should have fulfilled (but we have fallen short) so that He be our substitute in taking the penalty we deserve: the Wrath of God.  We cannot do good deeds to cancel out our penalty; even if we try we still continue to sin!  Despite this hopeless situation when we trust in ourselves we now do the opposite: Trust in Him alone that HE saves!  The Bible teaches if you have faith in Jesus He will save us!  Don’t delay, make sure you are saved by God’s grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone!