Old man, New man

Pastor Herb has been preaching on the awesome grace of God, and has enough “ammunition” to take us through the summer with this theme. Sometimes his messages make one have to respond with “ouch!”. As in “hit a nerve”.

This past week was one in which I was reminded that there is still a lot of the “old man” left in this old man.  My world is not one that easily revolves in the electronic cosmos. I lost my IPod somewhere between Missouri and home during our recent motorcycle trip. This necessitated getting a replacement, since it is my “Juke Box” on long rides. This also meant that I had to reload the almost 20 hours of music on the new IPod. Hence began the saga that opened up the old man’s nature. 

I am a very patient individual…in most cases.  But electronic stuff frustrates me.  Those electrons disappear into the ether, and are untraceable…at least to me. I had a revelation that I needed to reload ITunes on the PC to start the whole process.  In the midst of this, Microsoft started to download “updates”, which then sabotaged my pc, and it stopped responding to me. (Did I anger it, somehow)? This led to the necessity to reload my operating system onto my Dell laptop.

I said I’m technically challenged, right?  Instead of just reloading Vista, I goofed up and completely reloaded it, wiping out everything on the laptop. Once I (eventually) reloaded other programs and files back in, it stopped letting me on the net. Can we say increased frustration?

My normally patient demeanor soured into a morose, bummed out old dude, with a sour disposition. I may have rather stayed in bed, covered up my head and remained there until the rapture. What I did not need was more frustration.  What I really needed was a cart-load of grace.  Not ordinary grace, mind you, but grace right from the throne! Special dispensational grace.  The kind that covers up your naked, boorish, natural-man attitudes.

God blessed me with a great brother, with infinite understanding and tolerance for an electronic ignoramus, and pulled me out of the fire, got me on the web again, and exhibited abundant grace to me. And I was so prolifically reminded that I still have a carnal nature that is not entirely (or even maybe, a bit less than perfectly???) redeemed. 

I needed grace.  I needed reminded that grace was available, and that there are still large deposits of the “old man” lurking within this man.

Thank you Pastor Herb for bringing us to the place of remembering that we are saved, but still being saved!

Gary Leary,Assistant Pastor, Church of the Heartland Plymouth