Plugged In, Charging?

Turn my eyes away from what is worthless! Revive me with your word!

—Psalm 119:37

My laptop is temperamental these days. At times it does not charge even when plugged in. I discovered the problem a few months ago when I couldn’t get the laptop to turn on. I took it to a techie, and after some troubleshooting, he diagnosed the issue and suggested that I regularly check the icon in the lower right of my screen to make sure that it says “plugged in, charging.” If it says, “plugged in, not charging,” I need to fiddle with the cord a bit until it makes the connection.

Sometimes I exhibit the same symptoms as my laptop. I appear to be plugged in, but I am not charging. I seem to be doing all the things a Christian should, yet I don’t feel energized. What is happening?

Fueling Foul Up

Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,

Because His compassions fail not.

They are new every morning;

Great is Your faithfulness.—Lamentations 3:22-23 

I do it all the time—every time I fill up. I notch the lever on the gas pump handle and trust it to stop automatically when the fuel reaches the top of the tank. Wednesday was no different. I positioned the nozzle, squeezed the trigger, secured the lever and let it do its thing.  Meanwhile I watched the numbers on the pump climb higher than the dollars in my wallet.  Click! I reached for the handle and then quickly withdrew my hand, as gasoline gushed out, splashing down the side of the Jeep and spilling onto the concrete. “Oh, no!” I groaned, fumbling to release the lever.  Wasting fuel in our conservation conscious culture is sinful. What a mess! What do I do? I scanned the pumping station. Not a paper towel in sight! Angrily I rummaged through my car and pulled out a rumpled napkin.  But I knew I had no one to blame but myself. I will never take my hand off the nozzle again! 

How many other things do I do automatically?  Has routine become my routine? 

Dust it off!

Lord, be gracious to us; we long for you. Be our strength every morning, our salvation in time of distress.--Isaiah 33:2

I wearily entered my classroom at the start of the day and switched on my desk lamp.  Light flooded my desktop revealing coffee rings and a layer of dust too thick for me to tolerate a minute more.  I yanked a saturated wipe from the dispenser and pushed away piles of papers.  Scrubbing away coffee stains, I eyed the rest of the mess decorating my desktop. 

A handmade card, an origami crane, a starfish, a plastic frog, a puzzle cube, and a pencil sharpener disguised as a little smiley-faced blue man who seemed to say, “Here I am, ready to serve!”  I laughed and shook my head.  What an odd assortment of items!  How did this collection find its way here? 

Then I remembered.