now

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I Need Those Batteries Now

These days you can’t go very long without needing a bunch of batteries to replace ones that have worn out.

There is a clock in the sanctuary of my church that reads 5:05. That’s not the current time; it’s been showing that time for a week now.

It needs a new battery.

I wear a mic when I preach and every week I take out the batteries and charge them so they are ready to go for the next week.

I’ve been noticing that even rechargeable batteries can’t be recharged forever.

What would we do without being able to quickly pop in a new set of batteries to run our clocks, lights, mics, vacuums, you name it – even our drones?

Especially drones!

I have two drones and the batteries in them don’t last very long.

The battery in my little drone only lasts about seven minutes and the one in the bigger drone only lasts about ten.

I don’t get much flying time before I need to replace them.

The problem is they don’t take standard AA batteries. They have their own shape and connections so you can’t just go to the store and buy new ones.

You usually have to order them online and they generally come from China which takes a long time. … Replacement batteries for my little drone arrived the other day and I’d been waiting for them for two months!

I think it’s China’s secret way of crippling the west. If they just hold out on the batteries,  we in North America will be at their mercy.

Forget weapons and armies, they’ve got our batteries!

And the batteries for these drones are a step backward in technology. You don’t want to overcharge them; that will damage them.

You don’t want to recharge them if they still have some charge left in them either. They have a memory, so they will only remember to charge for the shorter amount of time.

And you don’t want to let the battery run down too low because, if it does, it won’t take a charge at all.

My brother found that out the hard way; that’s why he has two batteries on order right now.

We need batteries to be more reliable and to last longer. They can figure out how to get a car to run on batteries for an hour; we need someone with that kind of know-how to make our drone batteries last that long.

The keyboard I write this blog on needs a battery to power it. I’ve had it for over a year now and I still haven’t had to change the battery … That’s the kind of battery life I’m talking about.

And while they’re at it creating a better battery, they should make sure we can just leave it sitting around for a month or two without fear of it draining all on its own.

After all, it’s not like the energy produced by Niagara Falls, where we have to use it right after it’s produced.

Here’s the thing: This week I was reminded that a Christian has everything we need in us for life and godliness – that everything is the Holy Spirit. He never runs out, never has to be recharged. We just have to use Him and work with Him to produce in us the character qualities that God wants to see in us.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need recharged right now? Leave your comments below.

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My Life Is In Flux Right Now

I’m in a state of flux right now. Though it’s early in September, and I’ve had a long planning session for the upcoming year, I still feel a little out of sorts.

My planning went well and I came away from that week with some solid tracks to run on. But when I sit in my office, I don’t feel settled.

The reason for that? – my office is a mess!

During the summer we had a huge rain storm. The church basement flooded and we had to have a company come in to help clean up the mess.

I was away on vacation at the time; my office was locked and there was no need for anyone to go in it.

So when I returned after being away for several weeks, the first thing I noticed was the damp smell and then the ceiling tile that had fallen down.

There had been a leak in the roof and it had soaked through a ceiling tile, which had fallen down beside a bookshelf.

The amazing thing about it all was, though the ceiling tile was still soggy wet, the leak never touched any of my books.

I was sure happy about that, but it left me with a bit of a mess and forced me to make an even greater mess.

I took all the books off the shelf and put them in piles around my office. I then moved the bookcase out from the wall so that someone could examine the situation and put the ceiling back together again.

Well, things are moving rather slowly and my office has been in the same state for a couple of weeks now.

… And that’s why I feel so unsettled in my office.

It’s that same feeling you have when you’ve moved into a new home and you have boxes everywhere. You’re excited to be in the new place but you don’t feel right until all your stuff is where it is supposed to be.

I’ve been meeting with people in another room because my office chairs are being used to support three foot high piles of books.

I also have a bookcase that is standing in the middle of my office.

My office feels more like a storage space than an office. It’s not conducive to focussing on work.

When I look up from my computer, I often wonder if one of the piles of books looks like it’s leaning a little too much. I start to imagine it as the leaning tower of Pisa.

I really hope that I don’t need any of those books. If I do, I’ll be forced to play that block game Jenga with them … and I’ve never been particularly successful at not toppling over the stack of blocks.

I think the sooner my office can get put back to normal, the sooner I will start to settle down for the fall.

Here’s the thing: Many things can come up in life that cause you to feel unsettled – a health issue, job pressure, a move or even a flood. There may be nothing you can do to get life back in order, leaving you tempted to completely lose focus. However, you can keep order in your spiritual life by spending regular, quality time with God. If you do that in the morning, it will start your day off right, even if other aspects in your day are still in flux.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What has got you feeling a little unsettled? Leave your comments below.