computers

Jesus didn't have a computer.

And he seemed to get by OK.

But, of course, he was walking around in a rather different time and place. And life was lived at a very different pace.

Maybe he didn't need a computer. In any case there weren't any around, so he just got by with what there was.

He had a heart so pure and good and big, he didn't need a computer.

We do. Our hearts are just not big enough to cope. His is.

He's the good shepherd. He knows all the smallest details of each sheep he has. By heart.

We're not so good at that. Especially after we turn forty.

So a good computer database is a church's sort of makeshift bionic heart. It enables us to have the names and all those details of the flock that we're entrusted with - it enables us to have those details written on our hearts.

As they're written on the heart of God.

A good computer database. A really useful tool.

So I didn't feel the time we spent this morning with the guy who's been at work to reconstruct our database - I didn't feel the time was really wasted time at all. Anything but.

Despite it being the whole morning. After I got back from the school, that is.

If it helps us the better to pastor the 'flock' then it's got to be time well spent. I think it was.

Even though it took a large part out of the day.

The lunchtime service brought a halt to what might have gone on long enough. (There's always more to be tinkering with, as any self-respecting computer geek will testify!).

Douglas was leading the service today. It's always good to have him there and there must have been forty at least attending. Which was super to see.

One of my relatives also had rung while I was out at the service. So I called him back n the early afternoon and had a long chat with him.

It was lovely that he rang. That he felt so free to talk and to run past me the issue that he had. I think he maybe wanted re-assurance at a major sort of turning point for him.

I can never tell just what a day will bring. And there's always more to do.

Like a fair bit of work that's still to be done in regard to the 7th of June. Our 'living simply' event. I need to try and make a DVD for that. Somehow. Sometime.

I did manage out for a bit in the afternoon. Visiting. A lovely, bright and sunny afternoon. Not a time to be stuck behind an office desk.

The person I wanted to see was out. But I called on by a couple just along the street and enjoyed the time with them. And their grandchildren, when they came in from school.

The guy's got a super garden. Not big, but he's worked it well and it looks just really nice. What a difference that makes, when it's tidy and bright and full of variety, colour and bloom.

It was good to chat with them for a while.

And at night I was back with the 'famous four', the couples I meet with to work through the Scriptures each week.

Amazing what we cover in the time we spend together! We got onto such things as 'harmonics' and how that's involved in the 'upside-down' rainbows there sometimes are (not that I've ever seen one myself, but Paul had a photo to prove they exist): and 'loop' theory (sometimes called superstring theory): and who knows what all else.

All coming out of Genesis 6 and 7!

Which drives me back to my lap-top. Google, this time, to see for myself what these things are all about!

Computers. They're no real substitute at all for Jesus. But they have their uses!