Proverbs 3:5 –Trust in the Lord completely, and do not rely on your own opinions. With all your heart rely on him to guide you, and he will lead you in every decision you make.

Gratitude 679

After the message popped up about 20 times, I knew that something HAD to be done.

It began about 10 days ago when I repeatedly would get messages on my laptop that I had very low disk space. Basically, my hard drive was full. In fact, it was so full that when I tried to pull things off of my hard drive and onto a flash drive, there wasn’t enough memory to do this. Who knew that when a file is moved off of your computer, you need an equal amount of memory on your computer to actually move the file?

I didn’t. Until now.

After looking at the unused space on my hard drive, it became clear to me that I needed more than a flash drive to really clean up my computer. Rather than buying multiple flash drives, I decided to purchase an external hard drive; something I have been planning on getting for awhile now. It only took a few minutes to order one online.

And then, I had to wait. For it to be delivered.

In the meantime, I did contemplate just using a cloud-based storage and skip the external drive. Basically, this would mean trusting that this place where things go on the “cloud” would be sufficient for me and I would be able to pull what files I needed from the cloud as I needed them.

Truth? The whole “cloud” thing just feels a bit scary for me. I know lots of people depend and rely on cloud storage. I use it but am not fully efficient with it. There’s a part of me that feels a lot more comfortable with readily access to my files and information without depending on the cloud. I know. Old-fashioned. But this is one place where I’m not quite ready to relinquish everything to someplace where I am completely depending upon something else.

A couple days ago, the external hard drive arrived. YEAH! I sat down at my computer, convinced in an hour or two, everything would be good to go, and I could return to being more productive.

Wrong.

It took HOURS, and I mean HOURS, to get things moved over to the external hard drive. Remember how a computer needs the same size of available information on its drive when something is moved? Initially, I could only move very small files at a time. After I have put several into the trash, then I would have to empty the trash and make room to start the process over again.

Let’s just say it was tedious. I tried to organize some files as I did this, but I also knew totally organizing everything was going to take even more time. I reached a point where I just wanted to get my computer back and be able to do the things that I really planned on doing this week.

It truly was a lesson in patience.

And much more.

Too often, I find myself trying to pack too many things into a day, a week or a month. I find myself with not nearly enough free space or open space. And then, when I try to off-load something, it takes even more energy to do this than simply saying, “No.”

Regularly, I am just like my computer: I need an overhaul but not sure that I want to take the time to do it. Or I’m not sure that I will be excited about putting the time in to really focus on what is important. So, I choose to do the easier stuff that may or may not be as important.

I know better than to do this. But honestly, it’s easier to rely on the shortcuts I’ve done before than put in the tough and hard work for digging deeper and being clearer about what work is most important for me to do.

Anyone else struggle with this?

This whole too-full of a computer has given me a little push that I’ve needed for awhile to think more clearly about several things in my life. I’m still processing. I’m still working through. Maybe the full laptop was a little wake-up call in my life.

We shall see.

I challenge all of us to look at the regular, ordinary, run-of-the-mill things that happen in our lives every day and see what lessons we might learn from them. Are there things going on in our lives that can challenge us to think a little bigger? Deeper? And find indications that there are little messages and guides that we can find in our daily lives.

This is what connect our faith to daily living looks like. This is how we find and seek and embrace the Spirit’s work in our life. This is how we connect with God and discover more what God is saying to us.

Let me  be clear: everything that happens to us may not be some profound lesson or teachable moment. Things just happen. Yet, we often can relate little things to our lives if we pause long enough to embrace it. Maybe it’s not a full hard drive in your life. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s finding those things that are keeping you from fully being the person God longs for you to be. And doing something about this.

For lessons in life that ARE right here in our lives, I am grateful.

Blessings –

Dianne

Dear God – It is so easy to fill our lives with too much: doing, activity, expectations, commitments, and a whole bunch more. Some of these things are good and important. Other times, they are what we choose to keep ourselves from digging deeper into what You long for us to know, live and believe. Just like a full laptop, we can allow have too little space left in our hearts and minds to fully embrace the life You long for us. May I be willing to look at my everyday life and see what little messages You send me every day to figure this out. Ones I often look. May I discover a peace that comes from Your guidance in my life. Amen.