The Persevering Stage

A wise and gracious friend of mine encouraged me today.  As I lamented and vented about my job/living situation she kindly reminded me this is a "Persevering Stage" of my faith.  I am to continue trusting that God has a map/plan and it may not match my mapped out plan but it is where I need to be.  Another part of this is to embrace moving into the "question mark" section of the plan even when I don't know where I'm going, what I'm doing or where I'm living.  Sounds like so much fun.  Not.  Actually, my response to her was this was not the persevering stage, this was the curl up in a ball and cry stage.  She laughed.  I was serious.  However, I was not correct.  This IS the stage where I just have to continue trusting that God can work miracles in future employers, he does have a plan for my job, my life, my everything.  If I'm continuously allowing myself to see the situation as hopeless, I'm making my God insufficient.  I'm squeezing Him into a box of incapability and weakness which in turn leaves me incapable and weak because all that I am comes from Him.  A vicious cycle. 

Also shared by another friend tonight:

Colossians 4:2, 5&6

Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving.  Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward nonbelievers making the most of every opportunity.  Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person. 

I never cease to be amazed by His timing. 

Another Lesson from Oswald

Lessons from My Utmost for His Highest last night....

Huh.  Further proof that this stressing till my hair falls out probably isn't healthy :)  Life, jobs, friendships/relationships, why do I stress myself to max?  By worrying about it, I'm usually letting myself make rash decisions to "get myself out ASAP" and avoid any and all uncomfortable places.  I'm not a fan of the process.  I want results now and I want it to be comfortable the whole way.  Unrealistic? Of course, however, I'm an idealist, not a realist, this will always be a hard point. Idealist?  I tell myself I'm not a worrier, I'm an analyzer.  There's a very fine line between analyzing and worrying and lately I'm finding myself on the wrong side. I'm overanalyzing every little possibility of failure and finding so many possibilities to crash and burn it is inhibiting the ability to trust that it WILL be okay because not only do I not control the universe and I don't have to!  By allowing myself to fret, worry and bury myself in endless possibilities of what-ifs, I jump to decisions and make choices that I may easily regret later.  Does that mean God says, "O shoot, you screwed yourself over, that was OBVIOUSLY not the direction I had planned for you, stinks to be you, see ya later!?"  Nope. However, the promise to never leave me or forsake me is also not a guarantee that no matter what I do it will all be smooth sailing.  There are consequences for everything, for every decision I make, either good or bad, but through it all He's there pushing me on toward the prize, the end, His glory.  

"One of God's Great Don'ts"

Do not fret— it only causes harm —Psalm 37:8

Fretting means getting ourselves “out of joint” mentally or spiritually. It is one thing to say, “Do not fret,” but something very different to have such a nature that you find yourself unable to fret. It’s easy to say, “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him” (Psalm 37:7) until our own little world is turned upside down and we are forced to live in confusion and agony like so many other people. Is it possible to “rest in the Lord” then? If this “Do not” doesn’t work there, then it will not work anywhere. This “Do not” must work during our days of difficulty and uncertainty, as well as our peaceful days, or it will never work. And if it will not work in your particular case, it will not work for anyone else. Resting in the Lord is not dependent on your external circumstances at all, but on your relationship with God Himself.

Worrying always results in sin. We tend to think that a little anxiety and worry are simply an indication of how wise we really are, yet it is actually a much better indication of just how wicked we are. Fretting rises from our determination to have our own way. Our Lord never worried and was never anxious, because His purpose was never to accomplish His own plans but to fulfill God’s plans. Fretting is wickedness for a child of God.

Have you been propping up that foolish soul of yours with the idea that your circumstances are too much for God to handle? Set all your opinions and speculations aside and “abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1). Deliberately tell God that you will not fret about whatever concerns you. All our fretting and worrying is caused by planning without God.

Always Wondering...

...Am I doing it right?  Interceding and lifting those up who are around me is a constant, but it is so easy to fall back and say, "This is such a difficult time for them, I'll just pray it away."  It is easy to forget the prunings, the firings, the testings of life are what God uses to mold us into who he'd have us be or to draw us unto himself.   This devo on May 3rd kind of drove that home for me and has been running through the back of my mind ever since.  Am I interceding because I truly want them have connection with God or is it because my sympathies and emotions are aroused and I want everything to smooth out and go easier for them?  These are tough questions for me.

Vital Intercession - Oswald Chambers 

“…praying always with prayer and supplication in the Spirit…”  Ephesians 6:18

As we continue on in our intercession for others, we may find that our obedience to God in interceding is going to cost those for whom we intercede more than we ever thought.  The danger in this is that we begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting up to a totally different level in close identification with God’s interest and concern for others and step into having emotional sympathy with them, the vital connection with God is gone.  We have then put our sympathy and concern for them in the way.  And this is a deliberate rebuke to God.

It is impossible for us to have living and vital intercession unless we are perfectly and completely sure of God.  And the greatest destroyer of that confident relationship to God, so necessary for intercession, is our own personal sympathy and preconceived bias.  Identification with God is the key to intercession and whenever we stop being identified with Him it is not likely that sin will interfere with our intercessory relationship with Goy, but sympathy will.  It is sympathy with ourselves or with others that makes us say, “I will not allow that thing to happen.”  And instantly we are out of that vital connection with God.

Vital intercession leaves you with neither the time nor the inclination to pray for your own “sad and pitiful self.” You do not have to struggle to keep thoughts of yourself out, because they are not even there to be kept out of your thinking.  You are completely and entirely identified with God’s interests and concerns in others lives.  God gives us discernment in the lives of others to call us to intercession for them, never so that we may find fault with them.  

PC Owner's Must Have Programs

It has never ceased to amaze me how many of my PC owning friends and family members are lacking basic computer protecting knowledge.  With the incredible volume of viruses, Trojans, malware, adware, rootkits,  and other malicious software that is just an accidental click away from severely crippling your computer, one would THINK protecting your computer would be at the forefront of any basic computer use course or training program.  This is FAR more useful than knowing how to use Microsoft Word!  LOL Also, Learning how to periodically clean up fragmented, unused, and temp files along with your internet browser cookies will drastically improve your load time.

Am I a professional with any sort of official computer training?  No.  However, after spending the past 17 years working both with and on my own to keep my parents, then friends of my parents, then my own laptop, friend's laptops running smoothly and efficiently I have found some great tools that make the whole thing MUCH easier.

PREVENTION

While I am no longer a PC (Yup, I'm a Mac :) ) myself, I still have the luxury of working on quite a few PC's in the course of a year.  Also, while I've never had an issue over the past 4 years with my Macbook, I do still take regular precautions of:

• Not clicking on any pop-up ads
• Not clicking on any ads period
• If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!  - don't click
• Also, after 3 years problem free, I did opt to install free Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac

ANTI-VIRUS PROTECTION

First off, if you have a PC you MUST have good anti-virus protection.  This is essential!  The most common issues for improper anti-virus protection seem to be:

1. Out of date anti-virus protection
2. Running MULTIPLE anti-virus programs (more is not better)
3. No anti-virus protection

There is no excuse for not having a perfectly functioning anti-virus program.  There are plenty of companies who'd love to sell you their product (Norton & McAfee to name a couple) or if you're more a fan of FREE (like me), your college or institution may offer an anti-virus program as a free download (usually limited to one per student/employee).  This cuts down on your IT office's headache in the long run.  

There are also numerous free anti-virus programs available for download via the internet.  My person favorite over the years has been AVG, it is a quick download, the user interface is easy to use, and updates are a breeze.  It works as reliably (if not more so) than both Norton & McAfee. Other Free Anti-Virus programs exist as well.  

TROJANS, MALWARE, ADWARE, ROOTKITS & OTHER MALICIOUS SOFTWARE 

Don't think that just because you have a functioning Anti-Virus program you are fully protected from internet dangers.  That kind of thinking will get you into major trouble at some point down the road.  Every time you visit a webpage, make a search or click on something while connected to the internet you are leaving yourself vulnerable to attack.  If you regularly visit sites that are heavily laden with ads, make frequent downloads onto your computer from internet sources, or if you use (though people hate to admit it!) piracy websites for watching movies & tv shows, listening/ripping music, or file sharing you are even more at risk.

Some programs (all free downloads!) to help combat the attack on your computer include (in no particular order):

• Malwarebytes - Works great against stubborn malware
• Spybot Search & Destroy - Great basic protection
• House Call - For if you think your computer might be infected and your other programs might have missed it or have become infected themselves
• AdAware - Great basic protection

All of these should be run regularly to ensure nothing is slipping through and silently (or not so silently!) infecting/corrupting your files and pulling a coup d'état on your computer.  

BASIC COMPUTER CARE

You may notice that after time your computer takes longer to load when you click to open something, that your fan runs more often because your machine is thinking harder trying to follow rabbit trails and dead ends while it searches its memory for what you're looking for.  

Periodically, you should check for fragmentation of your files and defragment if necessary.  This is relatively easy and by clicking on your start menu (newer windows versions have a green circle), next click on "All Programs," then click the "Accessories" folder, click on "System Tools" and then click "Defragment."  You will then run an "Assess" scan to see whether defragging could help your computer at this point.  Chances are, if you've owned your computer for six months or more and have no idea what I was talking about at the beginning of this section, you need to defragment.  Once the assessment is completed, if it suggested to defrag, go ahead and defrag.  This may take anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours depending on the extent of fragmentation, your computer speed, what else is going on with your computer, etc.  

In that same "System Tools" folder where you found the "Defragment" icon, you will also see a "Compress Files" or "Disk Clean Up" icon.  If you click this it will give you the option to clean out temporary files that you don't need anymore and to compress old files that you haven't accessed in a long time in order to take up less space.  

An even better option for cleaning up your drives (and probably my FAVORITE program out of all that I've mentioned) is to download CCleaner.  This nifty little program not only cleans up your old files on your C: drive, it also cleans up the registry, checks for fragmented files, gets rid of temp folders, cookies, and lots more.  It runs relatively lightly on your system, is VERY easy to use, it even automatically knows when it needs to update and takes you to FileHippo directly to the newest version!  

Well, this is definitely longer than I think ANY of my previous posts.....but if even ONE person in their online stumbling is able to make their computer run smoother and less crippled, it is worth it.