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Curbside Service Is Not As Simple As It Appears

Today I’m trying out curbside pick-up and it’s not as simple as it is made out to be.

Curbside Service Is Not As Simple As It Appears

It sounds simple – you order something, drive up to the store and someone hands you your ordered product.

It’s sort of like A&W back in the 50’s and 60’s. You would drive up to a stall, order your food through an intercom and then an employee would run out or roller skate out to your car with your food order. 

It was pretty easy, but everything you ordered was known to you. Everyone knows what a french fry looks like and, though different restaurants sell them in different sizes or shapes, each restaurant only has one size for them.

The other day I needed to order some hardware products – one item was a threaded rod. 

It sounds simple, but I needed to choose the size of the threading and the online pictures of the different rods were all the same picture! 

I couldn’t tell which was larger and which was smaller. And the sizing was weird – M5 32×24. I’m not a handyman so these numbers didn’t help me at all. 

I didn’t know if a M5 was thinner than a M6. … I do know that with electric wire, the sizes go in the opposite direction: the higher the number the thinner the gauge of wire.

Who does that anyway? The electricians guild long ago must have thought it would be funny to mess with people’s minds and make 10 a really thick gauge, while making 18 a really thin gauge of wire. 

My problem was I didn’t know if people did that with threaded rods too. And since the pictures were all the same, I couldn’t tell.

If I could have gone into the store, I could have picked up each size, compared them and chosen the one I wanted. But with having to order online, I first needed to take a course in hardware management … and I needed to take the course quickly, so I could finish my order and get going on my project. 

Before long I had about three or four windows open on my internet browser, scrolling back and forth. 

What I discovered is the “M” stands for metric, and the number next to it stands for the diameter in millimetres. The next number is the pitch or the thread count. We are not talking about cotton sheets here either. The last number is the length … that one I figured out on my own. 

By the time I sort of knew what I wanted to order, I could have driven to Home Depot and back two times! 

… The lengthy process was just preparing me for when I pick up my purchase, realize I need a different size and have to do it all over again … plus have to learn how to do a return via curbside drop off. 

Here’s the thing: During this time of isolation there are lots of church curbside services available to us. We can tune in and pick up a message, a talk, or a devotional here and there. But unless you open up your own Bible, you can’t really compare what you are hearing with what God is really saying. Make sure you show up online with a Bible; don’t take someone’s word for it. Compare what the Bible says to what the online service is offering and get the right message with no returns. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Have you been engaging online with your Bible or without it? Leave your comments and questions below. 

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Why Projects Always Take Longer Than You Plan For

This post is a repost from January 2014, I hope you enjoy it.

Maybe it’s just me, but all projects I take on turn out to be more than I bargained for. It doesn’t matter what it is, nothing is as simple as I think it’s going to be. Something I think will take 10 minutes will take a half hour.  

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The other day I decided to fix a broken standing pole lamp that Lily really liked.

I took some measurements and headed to the hardware store. I was hoping for an all-in-one-fix-your-standing-pole-lamp-diy kit, but though I looked everywhere, I couldn’t find one.

I scoured the electrical section and found wire that I needed. There were two gauges to choose from; I picked the heavier gauge. I grabbed a switch and a socket that looked about the same as the original ones and headed home.  

So I purchased three items and, as it turned out, all of them were different that the original items in the lamp. But for some reason, I figured they would work just fine … and that’s all Lily cared about. She wanted the lamp to work.

It’s like the instruction sheet mentality, where you think, “Who needs instructions? Just do it and don’t worry about spare parts; it will all work out.” 

Well, my first problem was in replacing the wire. The opening in the pole was tight; I should have bought the lighter gauged wire. But I was going to make it work! So I forced it in and, yes, it probably took 3X longer than I thought, but I got it done.

I was surprised that the socket went on really quickly. That should have concerned me. When something is that easy, it usually means I forgot to do something. But I was on a roll and moved on to the switch.

I realized that I bought an on/off switch when the original had been a dimmer switch. At that point I didn’t really care. Lily was going to have light, and when you have light, why in the world would you ever want to dim that?!

With the switch in place, I plugged the lamp in and flicked that switch. Voila, it worked! I thought this was one of the easiest projects I’d done in a long time.  

That’s when I went to put the lamp shade on and realized why the old socket was different from the new one. It was used to secure the shade to the lamp.

I had to take off the socket and use the old one, and that required me to use solder. … I can’t solder worth a darn and it took me forever to make the change.  

When my project was finally complete, I didn’t stand back and think, “Great job, Paul. You did it again.”  

I placed the lamp stand in the living room, turned my back to it and walked away thinking, “I don’t want to look at that lamp for the rest of the night.”

Here’s the thing: Sometimes we want to fix our problems in life with ideas we’ve tried before or recycled approaches from some self-help source. The best approach, however, is to seek God for a fresh solution to your problem. Ask Him to apply His power to the problem at hand. He will use the right materials for the job.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What gives you the greatest frustration in problems or projects you have?  Leave your comment below.

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Encouragement That’s Simple Yet Profound

Everyone needs a little encouragement sometimes. If we go too long without it, we can begin to lose confidence, or feel unappreciated, or generally down.

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There are those who seek encouragement and, at very least, they get attention. When they were children they were the ones who would always say, “Look at me; look at me”, and it was cute to see the new trick they had learned to perform.

When those same people get older, it’s not so cute. When someone’s in their twenties or thirties and are still calling people to take notice of them, it’s just annoying.

It’s not that we don’t want people to notice us, it’s just that we’ve matured to the point where we don’t crave attention and we prefer to be noticed without our solicitation.

It’s really not encouragement when we’ve had to ask for it.

Timing is also important in receiving encouragement. It doesn’t work if it’s not related to something that is going on in your life. It’s important to have close proximity between the encouragement and what you’re being encouraged about.

Telling someone they would be great at something they have no interest in or aptitude for doesn’t really work. In fact, you need both of those – interest and aptitude – for encouragement to work.

I remember when my son was figuring out what he would take in high school. When he listed off his courses, I said, “You should take French because you have a real aptitude for it.”

He just looked at me like I was a stranger he’d never laid eyes on before, then looked back at his mother to continue to list his subjects as if I was no longer in the room.

He did have an aptitude for it; he just didn’t have any interest in taking it. Therefore, my comment was not taken as an encouragement to him in any way.

At least now – ten years later – he recognizes me as his father again!

Unsolicited, close proximity, and resonating with our interests and aptitude – this is the script for a great encouragement.

And the other day, I got one! It was 9:14 Saturday night. I was relaxing, and just finishing watching a movie before heading to bed.

The text read, “Praying for you, Paul … have an amazing time with God tomorrow morning!!”

The next morning I was going to be preaching at our church. To know someone was praying for me in advance of that was a huge encouragement to me. It really picked me up.

I looked for a name but there was only a phone number and not one I recognized. This same person had also texted me something similar back in February.

That was it. It probably took about twenty seconds to type, but it was a big encouragement to me.

My reply was simply, “Thanks”.  And that’s what I was – thankful.

Here’s the thing:  It was a person who texted me that encouragement, but I knew who was behind it. God knew I needed an encouragement right then, before I preached the next day. He prompted that person to pray and encourage me. I thought about trying to figure out who had texted, but I got an overwhelming sense that I should just leave it and take the encouragement as anonymous. God will bring you encouragement when you need it most. Look for it to come in any shape or form.

That’s life!

Paul

Question: How have you been surprisingly encouraged? You can leave your comment below.