I love my ministry. I believe God game me the passion for computers, technology. I have no other way to describe it. So, I put my knowledge, my energy into being the secretary at church.
I create the Sunday Bulletins and church directory, and if there is a prayer request I send it out on email. There aren’t too many events but I do try to keep the congregation informed. I love what I do.
With my whole heart I believe 1 Cor 10:31 – “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” I’m a “type A”personality, so I give it my all to do a good job. It gets quite frustrating when the computer, the printer or the copy machine malfunctions and I find myself threatenting to “drop kick” it across the parking lot.
Yesterday was one of those days. The copy machine died a couple of months ago and there has been dragging of the feet to get it replaced. Someone brought in a desktop printer they bought for $40. saying it would be a good substitute, plus they could get toner for $20. on eBay!
I’m supposed to be thrilled? I want a REAL copy machine. I want something I can deal with. It’s how I was trained working 12 years in an office job. I want the bulletin and everything else I produce to come out looking as close to professional as possible! I don’t want to waste paper that the church has paid good money for. It has been my goal to be efficient and having this “copy-machine-imitator” is like having the electricity go out.
Every Friday I have had to throw out 7 to 10 sheets of legal size paper because this printer doesn’t do well with double-sided printing. The paper gets too warm and doesn’t want to feed properly.
After 4 hours of doing what used to take an hour and a half, I’m done.
On the way home I felt like I should be asking God “what am I to learn from this frustrating afternoon?” By the time I arrived in my drive-way His answer was forming in my heart and mind.
Summing up my afternoon, God gave me the comparison between that “fake” copy machine not wanting to co-operate and how we humans act and a verse from the Bible.
There I was, wanting to drop-kick that printer across the parking lot for causing me frustration, for not performing as I thought it should. Well, I mean, it didn’t perform good enough for God, and in turn that made me feel that I didn’t do a good job. The bulletin didn’t turn out good enough for God.
Then I got to wondering if God ever wanted to drop-kick us humans for not performing well? We mess up from time to time – does that make us not good enough for God? The Bible says in Isaiah 64:6 that “for all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment;”
There it was. Justification that I was worthy of God drop kicking me across the parking lot just like I was wanting to do to that printer! How many times have I been imperfect in my performance? Especially toward other people? I was not being good enough for God but did he punish me for it? I had no bruises from being kicked. No headache from Him thumping me on the head and saying “duh, Linda”.
He sent His son too die for my sins, my imperfections, my poor performance. I was forgiven before I was even born. Before you were born! God loves us that much, and what do we do? Get angry and throw tantrums because we want our actions to be perfect – good enough for God!
The “long and short of it” is, that no matter what we do, we must do our best – from the heart. God knows our heart, so He’s not going to fault us for a printer that has issues when it’s used beyond it’s created functions. If we do the best we can, with what we’ve got as our service to the Lord, we can praise God for giving us the ability to step beyond our limitations, the limitations of the equipment we work with in order to do God’s work and do it for His glory and not our own!
The Long & Short of it. . . 