The next morning on the packages the events of the previous day swirled in my soul. I checked with Kevin after Alice’s party, and he predicted the batches would be completed by early evening.
Alice’s party was hard for me. I’m not a good chit-chatter with folks I don’t know very well. I did have a good conversation with one of Alice’s grandson’s Jeff, who’s studying Computer Science at the University of South Carolina.
His eye’s widened when I told him about carrying around punch cards for writing COBOL programs back in the late 70s. Things have changed so much Jeff wasn’t even sure what COBOL was.
“It stands for Common Business Oriented Language,” I explained. “It was developed by Admiral Grace Hopper. COBOL emerged 1959. and it’s still used a lot today in banking, insurance, and other large data industries.”
As I shared my enthusiasm about computing history with Jeff, I could see his eyes beginning to glaze over. I shifted the conversation and asked some questions about him.
Then he surprised me, “Granny says you’re a religious person, is that right?”
Simultaneously, I heard. “Be very real.”
“Actually, I’m not, Jeff.”
I could tell my answer took him back. I was ready to say more, but heard, “Wait. Give him space to process and respond.”
After a moment, he said, “But I thought you went to church a lot.”
“I do, but that doesn’t make me religious,” I replied. “Growing up, I saw religious people as judgmental, fun zapping and stuffy, so I avoided them.”
“I don’t understand,” Jeff replied. “How can you go to church and avoid religious people?”
I went on to explain that religion is following rules, Christianity is following a Person, Jesus Christ. I told him there are two ways to get to heaven; be perfect or be carried in by Someone who is.
He seemed very interested and asked a lot of questions, especially about what Christ’s crucifixion really meant.
I gave him some passages to read and showed him how to get the Bible app on his phone. He was amazed when I told him how Jesus was not a religious person either.
“In fact,” I said. “Take a look at Matthew 23:1-12. You’ll see how angry Jesus was at the religious leaders of his time. They were all about rule following, not God following.”
It was a nice conversation, but I had a restless night thinking about all that was going on.
As I continued to think about the day before, I heard Him say, “Rest. Bobby, you are worried and bothered by many things,”
Recognizing that these were the words, Jesus said to Martha in Luke 10:38-42, I responded, “But only one thing is needed.”
In the story of the two sisters, I’d always identified with the busy older sister, named Martha. But I’d longed to be like Mary, who sat at Jesus’ feet listening to His words.
Mary cared more about Jesus than accomplishments.
I wanted to be like Mary, but I was much more like Martha.
“You can be like Mary, but you must trust Me deeply,” He responded to my thoughts.
How?
“To be like Mary, thoughts of yourself must end; thoughts of doing, thoughts of pleasing, thoughts of measuring up must be replaced by trust; trust in what My Son did on the cross. He did it all for you. He brought you back from annihilation. He freed you. He completed you. He is worth all your attention.
When you do, He’ll take care of everything else.”
He said no more that morning.
Later, Sammy and Milly joined us for church. The sermon was on Psalm 27, particularly verse 4.
Again, I would hear about “one thing.”
One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord
And to meditate in His temple.
“How’d you like the sermon,” Jill asked Sammy and Milly, as we enjoyed our lunch at Lizard’s Thicket after church.
“I liked the focus on worship,” Sammy replied.
“Yes,” Milly chimed in. “Could life really be as simple as the one thing of worshipping God? What about all the things we have to do? We can’t just forget about them.”
“I’ve thought the same thing,” Jill added. “I was reading about this verse in a book about worshiping. The author mentioned that David’s one thing of desiring God above everything else was the mainspring for everything else in his life, his commanding, his ruling, his writing, everything.” [1]
“Wow, that makes a lot of sense,” said Sammy. “That softens the conflict in my head. Like the story of Mary and Martha and how Jesus told Martha that one thing is needed.”
I couldn’t believe what was happening. The very thing I heard on the packages that morning, was playing out before my eyes in a deep conversation. I was about to mention the packages for the first time to anyone, when my phone vibrated.
Glancing at my watch, I saw it was Kevin.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I need to take this.”
As I stepped outside and answered the phone, I heard, “Rest.”
“You okay,” I asked.
“Not at all,” Kevin exclaimed tersely. “I knew you were at church and wanted to be sure our process was still going. On my way in, I passed Mike driving away. I don’t think he saw me.
“When I got upstairs, the server was off. When I rebooted, I was able to restart the remaining batches. But the abrupt termination of the one which was running has corrupted a large block of data. And it was for the new client.”
I tried to console Kevin, but he came unglued. He was going to resigned on the spot, but I told to hold on until I got there
To Be Continued
[1] How to worship Jesus Christ by Joseph S. Carrol, pages 22-26
Joy in the Journey is about the gladness of God’s nearness in the midst of life’s adventures.
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Nonfiction books by the Author:
Because joy is rooted in God and is eternal, it doesn’t ebb and flow with the waves of circumstances. In fact, as we grow in our understanding of joy, we can even experience it more acutely when life is hard. Why? Because God uses trials to conform us into the image of Christ. With this awareness, which gives us glimpses of God’s greater purposes, we rejoice because of His masterful work to free us from needing anything but Him.
For these reasons, and many others, joy in the Lord is commanded in scripture. It’s not just a good idea, it’s vital to our journey as human beings. Rhythms of Joy
Novels by the Author:
What happens when a professor figures out how to send messages to his younger self to try and avoid the suicide of his best friend? Did he change more than he bargained for? Beyond Time
By finding two undelivered letters in a old shack deep in the woods, Cassie and Daniel unknowing set off a series of events which uncover a plot to wipe out a whole family Hope Remains
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