Wednesday, January 25, 2017

                So, this past Monday lived up to Monday’s reputation as a bad day. I spilled my morning cup of coffee.

 I was sitting on the couch with the laptop on my lap and watching the TV. It was my fault as I wasn’t looking where I was setting the cup down and over it went. In a split second, I made some vital decisions. I managed to get the laptop out of the way. I also managed to get some of me out of the way. Most of the coffee landed on the arm of the sofa and the seat from which I had leapt. It turned out that the one piece of essential equipment that I didn’t save was the TV’s remote control. It got a good dousing and soon went very dead.

                The remote control is the greatest invention of humankind of all time.

                I don’t know how it is for the people (probably men) in your household but my remote control is a part of my hand when I am watching TV - like it was fused or grew there. Oh, the TV still worked although I had to get up or actually get down where the cable box was in order to change channels. Normally (?), I have the changer in my hand, and driving Susan crazy, I flip channels at frequent random, constantly check the guide, watch several sports games almost simultaneously, and best of all I have the wonderful mute button to silence the commercials.

                So there I was, frozen to watch the same channel because it was too much work and bother to change channels. I had to listen to all the commercials (some which make a lot more sense since I’ve now heard the dialogue), and was dying to know the score of the hockey game. My fingers twitched at some phantom remote. I felt powerless. I felt anxious and uncomfortable like there was something missing from my life.  It was torturous.  It is almost as bad as going without the internet or TV itself. I have been a TV addict since I was a toddler. A guy can’t just go cold turkey when it comes to his TV changer.  (It dried out and now works. Praise the Lord!)

                We have become so used to what makes life convenient, fast, instant and self-serving that we deem it such a hardship when it doesn’t go our way, no matter how small and trivial it may really be. It has been said that we shouldn’t sweat the small things and although that is pretty good advice, many of us will react as if these things are apocalyptic, i.e. the end of the world.  We can fuss and fume and get our knickers in a knot over the slights, snubs and inconveniences that we all experience in our lives. We can become so annoyed when things don’t go our way. We can sulk and pout when life throws us a curve and it doesn’t fit our day’s plan. Been there, done that, and the T-shirt is in the wash.

                There are enough big things in our lives worth our concern, prayers and attention. The small “tests” are annoying for sure, but they pass and we are none the worse for wear.

                To put in in Jesus’ words, “For where your treasure is there your heart will be also,” (Matthew 5: 21).  If we are gathering all the lesser and smaller annoyances, disturbances, inconveniences, frustrations, irritations, dislikes, exasperations and pettiness into some sort of keepsake box then we are amassing nothing. It will be heavy but worthless.

                Look, life is not always easy. It can be challenging. It is certainly not about remote controls.  But Jesus did leave us with something worthy to concentrate on through it all: “Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence. This is the most important, the first on any list.  But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself,” (Matthew 23:  37 – 39 The Message).

                That makes fussing over a coffee-drenched remote seem kind of silly. 

Dale