Have you ever had one of those day which, when it began to draw to a close, felt like a very complete waste of time and energy? I have . . . today. I got up this morning, posted a couple outlines and a poem on truthsaves, then I got a very stupid idea. I thought I’d try to run the Knoppix distribution on my computer. Not knowing much about Linux, but knowing that Knoppix was a non-installing distribution (a demo, as it were) I thought it’d be fun to see it. According to the instructions, I downloaded it and burned it onto a disc, then tried booting my system with the disk. Nothing. I thought, “What a waste of time.” I took out the disk, restarted my computer and proceeded straight to the blue screen of death. I restarted the system. I began to do something when again the blue screen struck. I restarted again, quickly deleted my temp files, restored my registry to a few days earlier and restarted again. No more blue screen.
I then tried calling my parents on Skype. But Skype had disappeared. So I re-downloaded it, re-installed it, and then tried calling my parents. Needless to say, Skype didn’t work properly. I kept getting errors and losing my parents. So, I uninstalled Skype, looked up possible solutions, cleaned my temp files (again), deleted everything to do with Skype, cleaned my registry deleting every reference to Skype, updated my Logitech software and drivers (for my webcam), signed up for a new account with Skype and tried again. More errors. How frustrating! I had already gone through this on Christmas day and had fixed the problem by following the same steps. But today the same steps failed.
In the middle of the day I went out with my wife and Tim and we hiked around Round Lake. It felt good to get out. I took some pictures, came home a couple hours later and got busy on the computer again. Nothing worked. My website went down, my email quit working, my webcam stopped working, I was re-installing and un-installing programs . . . the frustration and irritation continued to mount.
Then, as the day wound down, I downloaded my pictures from my camera onto my computer and I stopped and started to think. I stared at the trail disappearing into the fog and I thought about the line in the Lord of the Rings:
The road goes ever on & on . . .
Then I thought about my own life. It’s a journey. It has a destination. Each day marks another step toward that destination. Did I get anywhere today? Did I step closer to my goal? What is my life’s goal? Where am I headed?
As I filtered through the jumble of thoughts in my frenzied mind the light came on. I’m headed toward Jesus. My life will end with Him. My journey should be leading me into His presence. But today I took some side-roads. I didn’t move toward the goal. I didn’t pray. I didn’t read the Word. I didn’t think in a productive manner. I let the challenges of the day defeat me and I wandered in circles. I let the little things control me. I didn’t see the big picture of life and death - of heaven and hell.
Jesus told us to:
Pray without ceasing.
I Thessalonians 5:17
Did I pray today? Do I normally pray? Do you? We should. In the Psalms we’re told:
But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
Psalm 1:2
Did I think on God’s Word today? Did I let it guide my thoughts and my actions today? No. And that’s why my day turned to crap. That’s why I swam through a swamp of negativity today.
Thankfully we serve a merciful God.
As I travel the unpredictable journey I pray that each step will lead me closer to Him.
