A few days before Christmas, the cord to the mouse controlled by my hand knocked over a glass on my desk that held the tiniest bit of water left after the ice had melted. This tiny bit of water ran over the side of my desk and dripped onto my external drive that was sitting very neatly on its side on my computer tower. This bit of water slid down into the air vents on my external drive and rendered it useless. The external drive with its powerful 300 gig of memory held every document and photo I owned.
When I read the scripture passage for this week's sermon (Philippians 3:8-17), Paul's words in verse 8 took on new meaning to me in light of my recent loss. Paul said, "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ." Paul had quite a pedigree: he was a Jew's Jew. He had a lot to lose but he gave it away for the pleasure to know Christ as Lord. All that powerful knowledge was trash to him. Could I so easily turn my back on everything? Would I be willing to donate everything I own to Goodwill? Could you?
Well, before you take up a love offering for me, you will be relived to know that I have a great computer guy who for a couple hundred bucks cracked open my worthless external drive and saved my precious, irreplaceable documents and photos. I would have paid anything to get them back. I now have a new, smaller, faster, 500 gig external drive. I now know that I am to do a hard drive backup EVERY week and the beverage goes on the LEFT. (For those of you who know my track record with electronics and beverages, you would probably say the beverage should be in the kitchen.)
